Natural prebiotic carbohydrates, carotenoids and flavonoids as ingredients in food systems

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in health promoting products which are also natural and safe for consumption because the consumer market has been searching for a healthy lifestyle. This global market trend has driven the food industry to invest in the development of innovative products containing bioactive components. In this review, we focus on presenting the results of the last few years and pioneer publications linking the employment of prebiotic carbohydrates, carotenoids and flavonoids/anthocyanin and enhanced food properties. Several studies in food systems have proposed that these bioactive compounds are promising food ingredients that not only modify and improve the physicochemical and sensorial characteristics of food products, but also improve human health and wellbeing.