Augmentation of Nutrition by Nanotechnology

Nowadays, nanotechnology, by its helpful application to the food industry, has found ways for improving the health of both humans and animals. From all their benefits, we can selectively mention that nanoparticles provide antimicrobial activities and increase the number of good gut microbes as well as their products, e.g., short-chain fatty acids. This chapter aims to provide insights into the augmentation of nutritional processes by means of nanotechnology. This technology has evolved more toward the food industry in the domains of food production, processing, conservation, packaging, safety, sensing, functional food, nutraceuticals delivery, etc. There are some very efficient nanosystems like the quantum dots, nanoparticles, nanofibers, or nanoemulsions designed with the purpose of developing better methods to improve/augment both the food quality and quantity. While recent studies have demonstrated the possibility of obtaining incremental benefits from the application of such nanosystems to the food industry, across a very broad span, from therapy to agricultural production, the examples of augmentation herein provided by curcumin, by thymoquinone, and by electric modulation of flavor prove to be relevant to our discussion.