Phytonutrients: structure-function relationship, health benefits, stability, and fate during processing

Phytonutrients are abundant and extremely variegated compounds, able to perform several biological functions both in the producing organisms, and in those that utilize phytonutrients after absorption and assimilation. They have gained researchers' attention due to their unquestionable health-promoting properties and multiple possible uses in industrial and pharmaceutical applications. The high variability in chemical structure makes them excellent dyes, protein modulators and antioxidants, antimicrobials, and anticancer and anti-inflammatory compounds. The industrial processing for the transformation of raw products can induce either an increase, or, most commonly, a decrease in their total amount; although the application of modern transformation techniques has remarkably reduced the loss and/or the production of undesirable secondary products.