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Food bioactive compounds, such as polyphenols, carotenoids, functional proteins and unsaturated fatty acids, have been used as important ingredients of functional foods due to their diverse biological activities. However, the low aqueous solubility, poor stability and limited bioavailability of these compounds limit their applications in the food industry. The preparation of delivery carriers from natural food macromolecules offers a promising approach to enhance the solubility, stability, and bioavailability of bioactive compounds. As a novel delivery system, intelligent responsive delivery carriers enable precise targeted and controlled release of bioactive compounds, thus improving their bioavailability. In addition, the delivery carriers have the capacity to effectively improve the added nutritional value, enhance the sensory properties, and extend the shelf life of functional foods. This review summarizes the functional properties of food bioactive compounds, the challenges in their application and their steady-state delivery strategies, with a particular emphasis on the common intelligent responsive delivery carriers and their mechanisms of action. Finally, this article discusses the application of these delivery carriers in functional foods, and provides an outlook on future research on bioactive compound delivery systems.

Probiotics offer numerous health benefits for human beings. However, it is difficult to achieve the expected beneficial effects of oral probiotics due to the viability loss during processing, storage and digestion. Oral delivery systems are effective ways to improve the processing and storage stability, gastric acid and bile salt tolerance, and intestinal adhesion and colonization ability of probiotics. This review focuses on the state of the art of oral delivery of probiotics, and summarizes the types of probiotics commonly used in probiotic products and their functional characteristics. Specifically, this review analyzes the effects of external environmental factors such as humidity, temperature, pH and oxygen, and internal environments such as the mouth, stomach, and small intestine on the survival rate of probiotics. Furthermore, the characteristics and applications of different oral delivery systems including microcapsule, hydrogel, oleogel, nanocoating, emulsion, and nanofiber are compared. Finally, this review proposes future prospects for cost reduction, intelligent packaging, co-packaging and population experiments of probiotic delivery systems, with the aim of providing technical support for the development of probiotic formulations with high storage stability and high viability suitable for intestinal targeted delivery.

Salt is a seasoning widely used in the food industry and our daily diet. Excessive intake of salt, whose major component is sodium chloride, will increase the risks of multiple diseases such as hypertension, gastric cancer, and stroke. How to reduce the salt content of foods without affecting the flavor is a hot topic of current research. Structural and compositional optimization of solid sodium chloride, which constitutes an important part of daily dietary salt intake, is an effective way to develop low-salt foods. This article provides a detailed discussion on the mechanisms of salty taste perception and sodium absorption and metabolism in the body, and summarizes the salt reduction strategies developed based on structural regulation and compositional design of sodium chloride in recent years. The novel technologies for reducing the salt content without affecting the salty taste, such as regulating the physical structure (morphology and particle size) of sodium chloride, encapsulating sodium chloride, and adding sodium chloride substitutes (salty mineral salts, flavor enhancers and natural taste substances) are discussed. In the end, the salt reduction mechanisms, shortcomings and applicable scenarios of salt with different structures and components are analyzed. We hope that this review will provide theoretical evidence and technical support to design new salt products, develop low-salt foods, reduce the dietary salt intake of residents and improve human health in the future.