**9. Food sciences contribution in boosting underutilized grasses products**

Food science belongs to basic as well as applied sciences of food and its scope significantly overlaps with agricultural science along with nutritional science leading through different vital scientific aspects pertaining to food processing and food safety along with persistent development of economically feasible technologies for food processing. Regarding underutilized grasses, food sciences can potentially play a vital role through product development and creating market demand for food products developed from underutilized grasses like lemon grass. There is an increasing pressure on agriculture to produce greater yields of feed, food and biofuel from limited land resources for the estimated population of nine billion people on the globe by 2050 [1–3]. So it is proposed that production from agricultural sources has to be increased to manage an estimated 40% increase in the world's population. About 90% of this progress is likely to result from improved cropping and high crop yields, while the remaining has to be produced from land resources presently not utilized for farming. The diversification of crops from the poaceae family having nutritional value can also cope with the problem of food insecurity. The diversification into other grass crops could lead to sustainable agriculture by enhancing economic, ecological, nutritional and social conditions.

## **9.1 Underutilized grasses for sustainable food production and nutritional security**

In comparison to the staple grasses, neglected or undervalued grasses are of immense importance in the food industry for developing valuable products. Food

#### *Underutilized Grasses Production: New Evolving Perspectives DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105375*

Science and technology has a wide range of applications for utilizing different undervalued grasses for the production of edible sugars and glucose from non-used rice and wheat residues which are usually wasted or burnt, and has been recently introduced for the successful production of food grade sugars. Similarly, Green Grass juice from underutilized barley and wheat is another essentially therapeutic food product with functional food ingredients. Green juice from grasses contains chlorophyll which is considered as green blood as it is a substitute of hemoglobin. So, the utilization of these grasses for juice production in the juice industry can achieve a wide range of objectives, including maintaining consumer's health. The active ingredients in these juices also hold functional properties of immense importance for the juice processing industry. However, their contributions should be studied in order to enhance the precision. Cereal grass juices must be encouraged as a functional beverage in diet-based therapies against different lifestyle-related disorders [29–31].

Another wonderful candidate from Poaceae family is lemon grass. Lemongrass is primarily cultivated and grown for its essential oil (EO) that has multiple medicinal (anticancer, analgesic and antimicrobial) and cosmetic uses. It is also utilized in the form of herbal tea (green tea) as it contains a variety of vitamins and minerals which are essential for health. Lemongrass derivatives in aqueous or dried extract form can be used for the preparation of acceptable mixed beverages. This valuable product could be developed to improve the antioxidant activity, nutritional aspects, and health benefits. Usually, grains from grasses are utilized but grasses are ignored as a waste. Barley grass powder has a huge potential of utilization as a functional food ingredient in food preparations. Barley grass is rich in vitamins and minerals and can be developed as a powdered supplement to treat many chronic diseases. Also, food industries can utilize the barley powder for fortification purposes. Infect some effective strategies of food scientists are required that can guide futuristic research on production of functional foods from barley grass for prevention and treatment of chronic diseases [32].

Recently, Denmark's National Food Institute contributed towards the novel application of grass protein as a food for human consumption. As it will be a cheaper and valuable source of protein to cope with the issues of food insecurity and alternatively protein deficiency malnutrition around the globe [33]. Interestingly, grass protein powder is a profitable and sustainable concept for serving humanity on the earth. Researchers claimed that grass protein has similar amino acid profile to that of egg, soya and whey proteins. For grass proteins ryegrass is an ideal candidate as it contains the right amino acids composition that can be turned out as a good protein source for human consumption. It is of prime interest that protein powder from rye grass can be utilized in a wide range of food products. As a novel food item grass protein powder must be approved by the European Food Safety Authority to ensure the powder is safe for human consumption. Researchers and food technologists are ambitious to develop grass protein as a food ingredient as it will be of great contribution towards an economical, approachable and sustainable solution to solve Food insecurity issues.
