Nutritious Edible Films

Food Packaging is the most important to protect and extend the storage quality of food products. The indiscriminate use of non-degradable plastics world over polluted all the three components of our environment i.e. soil, water and air. Therefore, the development of biodegradable films for environment and food safety is the need of an hour. The biodegradable films can be developed from various sources such as proteins, polysaccharides, lipids and composites as per requirements. Packaging of food materials is an essential process to avoid microbial contamination and deteriorative changes. The use of synthetic preservative in the foods is always a debatable issue. So, the use of essential oils, natural preservatives can fetch high recognition in the food market. These biodegradable films act as delivery vehicle for the nutrients and preservatives. Hence, the authors have provided details of the development of biodegradable, nutritious films from whey proteins impregnated with standardized level of essential oils. Developed biodegradable films serve many aspects viz. edibility, nutrition, natural preservation, environment protection.