Composition and functionality of bee pollen: A review

Background: The food industry today is returning to natural foods after emphasizing the processed products due to the higher consumer demand for foods which are well recognized by healthy nutrients. Bee pollen is known as a natural super food due to its indispensable nutritional and medicinal properties. However, the physico-chemical and nutritional properties of bee pollen are ambiguous which vary greatly due to the difference of botanical and geographical origin. Scope and approach: The current study, therefore, presents an updated overview by critically reviewing the literature for chemical constituents (sugars, amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, vitamins, and phenolic compounds) of bee pollen since 2009 from more than 20 nations of the world. The functional properties of different plant-derived bee pollen and their food applications are also discussed for the first time. Key findings and conclusions: As per the systematic review of above 100 studies, the bee pollen contains average 54.22% (18.50-84.25%) carbohydrates, 21.30% (4.50-40.70%) proteins, 5.31% (0.41-13.50%) lipids, 8.75% (0.15-31.26%) fibre, 2.91% (0.50-7.75%) ash, 13.41 g/100 g (2.77-28.49 g/100 g) glucose, 15.36 g/100 g (4.9-33.48 g/100 g) fructose, 4.25 g/100 g (0.05-9.02 g/100 g) sucrose, 4951.61 mg/kg (3.06-13366.60 mg/kg) potassium, 4157.86 mg/kg (234.40-9587.00 mg/kg) phosphorus, 1751.22 mg/kg (1.09-5752.19 mg/kg) calcium, 1246.99 mg/kg (44.00-4680.53 mg/kg) magnesium, 46.97 mg/kg (0.10-105.80 mg/kg) zinc, 197.41 mg/kg (2.60-1180.00 mg/kg) iron, and 30.59 mg GAE/g (0.69-213.20 mg GAE/g) total phenolic content. Bee pollen, based on its functional properties can be recommended as a natural food ingredient in several processed food products. Further, the present paper strongly focuses to investigate the mono-floral bee pollen from different geographical regions and related safety issues to establish the global pollen quality and safety standards in coming years.