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## Meet the editor

Vasiliki Lagouri (BA, MSc, PhD) received her three degrees from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has research and academic experience spanning from 1992 to 2018 from the Chemistry Department of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Food Technology Department in Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, the Department of Organic Chemistry

and the Faculty of Chemistry. Her current post-doctoral position is in the Department of Pharmacognosy and Chemistry of Natural Products, Faculty of Pharmacy, School of Health Sciences at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She has over 30 publications in international journals, conference proceedings and has written two book chapters on food chemistry, natural antioxidants and olive oil and olives as functional foods (more than 400number of citations). She has research experience in experimental designs and applications of different methods to study the chemistry of natural sources; and the isolation, identification and quantification of biologically active polar and non-polar compounds. She offered her services as a reviewer for the following journals: International Journal of Food Properties; Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture; Central European Journal of Chemistry, Separation Science and Technology; Natural Products Research; Nutrients; Molecules. She is a member of the American Chemical Society, the Society Free-Radical Research-Europe (SFRR-E), the Oxygen Club of California (OCC), the ISEKI-Food Association: European Association for Integrating Food Science and Engineering Knowledge Into the Food Chain and the Greek Chemist's Union and she is included in the Who's Who of America.

Contents

**Section 1**

**Section 2**

*by Vasiliki Lagouri*

*by Seray Kabaran*

Olive Oil Phenols

Introductory Chapter: Functional Foods

Functional Properties of Snack Bars

Fermented Functional Beverages

*by Ch. Sarojnalini and Abdul Hei*

*and Camelia Vizireanu*

**Preface III**

Introduction **1**

**Chapter 1 3**

Functional Foods - Properties and Technology **7**

**Chapter 2 9**

**Chapter 3 29**

**Chapter 4 47**

**Chapter 5 61**

**Chapter 6 77**

**Chapter 7 97**

*by Daniela Ionela Istrati, Eugenia Mihaela Pricop, Alina Georgiana Profir* 

Instant Controlled Pressure-Drop DIC as a Strategic Technology for

*by Carmen Téllez-Pérez, Maritza Alonzo-Macías, Sabah Mounir, Colette Besombes, Tamara Allaf, Ezzeddine Amami and Karim Allaf*

Olive Oil: Antioxidant Compounds and Their Potential Effects over Health

*by Christos Papanikolaou, Eleni Melliou and Prokopios Magiatis*

*by Oana Emilia Constantin and Daniela Ionela Istrati*

Fish as an Important Functional Food for Quality Life

Different Types of Natural Functional Foods

## Contents


Preface

This book consists of chapters that summarize the scientific research that connects functional foods with the active components and important health benefits. The health benefits of functional foods should be based on accurate scientific data and the issues of safety and efficacy should be taken into consideration. We must remember that functional foods are foods and not drugs or dietary supplements and any adverse effects with other pharmaceuticals should be thoroughly studied. In the Introductory Chapter 1, we see that it is important to communicate to the consumers the definitions of functional foods, the categories and how they can be prepared and used in our daily diet. In recent years, there has been growing interest in plant sources, vegetables, fruits, and medicinal plants rich in vitamins, fibers, and various categories of phytochemicals that have beneficial effects on human health, such as preventing or reducing the risk of chronic diseases. Olive oil is considered as a key component of the Mediterranean diet due to its fatty acid, especially monounsaturated fatty acid oleic acid, vitamin, and polyphenol composition. There are over 200 minor components in olive oil with biological activities. The most abundant antioxidants in olive oil are tocopherols, β-carotene, lutein, squalene, and lipophilic and hydrophilic phenols. Chapter 2 "Olive Oil: Antioxidant Compounds and Their Potential Effects On Health" overviews the chemical composition and health effects of the active components in olive oil. In Chapter 3 "Olive Oil Phenols", the structure and the significant biological activities of the four most abundant phenols in extra virgin olive oil (oleocanthal, oleacein, lingstroside aglycon, and oleuropein aglycon) are extensively described. An olive-oil-rich diet protects human health from cardiovascular diseases (cardiometabolic markers such as blood pressure, glycaemia, and dyslipidemia, LDL cholesterol, and LDL oxidation), type-2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, inflammation, and oxidative stress. The challenges of the new development of probiotic fermented products based on vegetables and fruits are presented in Chapter 4 "Fermented Functional Beverages" using scientific data from research studies. The scientific data, including the methods and the results, is presented in Chapter 5 "Functional Properties of Snack Bars" describes extensively the development of snack bars, which are consumer-friendly, with bioactive ingredients, and functional properties. Fish belongs to the basic food group of a healthy diet and is rich in important fatty acids, proteins, vitamins, and minerals. These are the key issues addressed in Chapter 6 "Fish as an Important Functional Food for Quality Life". New food processing technologies have been developed in order to stabilize the final functional product and preserve its bioactive properties and these are being used by food manufacturers. This is the key issue of Chapter 7. "Instant Controlled Pressure-drop DIC as a Strategic Technology for Different
