Antioxidant and Bioactive Films to Enhance Food Quality and Phytochemical Production during Ripening

Antioxidant films are one active packaging technology that can extend food shelf-life through preventing lipid oxidation, stabilizing color, maintaining sensory properties and delaying microbial growth in foods. Because raw, fresh and minimal processed foods are more perishable during storage or under display conditions than further processed foods, they rapidly lose their original quality. Foods are susceptible to physical, chemical, and biochemical hazards to which packaging films can be effective barriers. Although films incorporated natural (tocopherols, flavonoids and phenolic acids) or synthetic antioxidants (BHT, BHA, TBHQ, propyl gallate) have been extensively tested to improve quality and safety of various foods, food applications require addressing issues such as physical properties, chemical action, cost, and legal approval. Increased interest in natural antioxidants as substitutes for synthetic antioxidants has triggered research on use of the new natural antioxidants in films and coatings. Use of new components (phytochemicals) as film additives can improve food quality and human health. The biosynthesis of plant phenolics can potentially be optimized by active coatings on harvested fruits and vegetables. These coatings can trigger the plants natural proline-linked pentose phosphate pathway to increase the phenolic contents and maintain overall plant tissue quality. This alternate metabolic pathway has been proposed by Dr. K. Shetty and is supported by numerous studies. A new generation of active food films will not only preserve the food, but increase food's nutritional quality by optimizing raw food biochemical production of phytochemicals.