Lipid delivery systems for food applications

Bioactive lipids play an important role in human health. These lipophilic substances cannot be synthesized within the human body and must be obtained through dietary ingestion. For this reason, there is an opportunity in the food industry to develop functional foods based on bioactive lipids. However, these compounds have poor stability during the production and storage and have low levels of absorption in the gastrointestinal tract. For these reasons, many strategies have been developed in the last years to enhance their stability and their bioavailability such as nanoencapsulation. This chapter aims to highlight different kinds of nanoscale delivery systems that have been designed to encapsulate bioactive lipids. This includes nanoemulsions, nanoliposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, and nanostructured lipid carriers.