fortification of dietary biopolymer based packaging materials with bioactive plant extracts

due to the importance of the plant extracts and classification of them as gras, blending them with food packaging materials based on dietary biopolymers attracts a great attention recently. polysaccharides (eg. chitosan, alginate) and proteins (such as soy and whey protein isolate, gelatin and zein) act as polymeric carriers for transporting a variety of bio active extracts like green tea extract, grape seed kernels extract, blueberries and cranberries extract. in addition, plant extracts are proven to improve packaging physicochemical properties and bioactivity so they can increase their overall applications including physical properties, antioxidant capacity and antimicrobial activity. in summary, several factors such as color, aroma and flavor will be determined in the final product. the main criteria include the origin of extracts and bio polymer carriers (eg. films from protein or polysaccharide that acts as a carrier for extracts), combination of polymeric carriers and extracts and processing of applied polymeric carriers ingredients. interactions between polymeric carriers and extracts are known well. furthermore, it has been proven that polyphenols are one of the key ingredients that play an important role in potential hydrogen bonding which participate in these interactions.