The aim of this article is to highlight the importance of using functional foods as a sustainable and affordable strategy to successfully address the food utilization pillar of food security, especially in developing countries. By implementing this sustainable food system, developing countries would be able to combat food insecurity and malnutrition. Relying on cheap, calorie-rich, but nutrient-deficient foods can result in serious health issues such as chronic diseases and nutrient deficiencies. Therefore, the promotion of the cultivation and use of locally available, underutilized legumes, spices, medicinal herbs, and agricultural by-products from fruits and vegetables should be done in order to meet nutritional needs and other functional benefits of a nation. These are presented as cost-effective, nutritious substitutes that can be used to develop functional foods that offer health benefits beyond basic nutrition. The article further highlights ongoing research focused on utilizing underutilized medicinal herbs and spices available in Sri Lanka to explore the possibility of using these affordable sources as ingredients to develop functional foods within common food categories.
Content:
Food security is when “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. The four main pillars of food security include availability, access, utilization, and stability. Availability and access focus on whether food is physically present and affordable, whereas utilization describes the nutritional quality of the food and the body’s ability to absorb its nutrients (FAO 2025). Food consumption is not merely a matter of caloric intake but also considers nutritional quality and safety. It emphasizes the need for safe and nutritious food that provides essential nutrients to meet the specific dietary needs of different individuals.
The volatile food-prices caused by global and local monetary crises are anticipated to have far-reaching effects on the food security of many developing countries. Combating food insecurity is a major global health challenge for these countries, placing a huge burden on individuals, families, and communities. In extreme situations, nutritional and health status of certain low-income people, infants and children, pregnant women, elderly people, and those with chronically illnesses or disabilities are compromised. Soaring food bills may lead to several issues for families that may be forced to replace nutritious conventional foods including meat, fruits, legumes, and vegetables with starchy staples that lack micronutrients. This can lead to major threats such as reduced calorie consumption, micronutrient deficiencies, chronic and acute child malnutrition, low birth weights, insufficient breastfeeding, and increasing the risk of chronic diseases.
Therefore, a sustainable food system must be implemented in developing countries that provide food security and nutrition for all without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Currently, the majority of the population in these countries is driven to seek cheaper food alternatives such as starchy staples, processed food products, snack etc. However, these food alternatives should aim to satisfy hunger, provide adequate nutrition, and support the physical and mental well-being of people. In these circumstances, the cultivation and use of locally available, underutilized crops/herbs (examples: legumes, fruits, spice, and medicinal plants) can be encouraged. These are cost-effective options that have the potential to sustain the food and nutrition security of local communities. Those can be used as ingredients to create functional foods including soups, bakery products, meat, and dairy products that deliver macro and micro nutrients along with additional health benefits. This strategy is an excellent approach to eradicating many of the aforementioned threats.
Functional foods can be consumed as part of a daily diet. They are natural, modified or processed foods rich in macro and micro nutrients, as well as bioactive compounds that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition. These bioactive compounds have properties such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, antifungal, antidiabetic, and anticancer effects. Overall, the beneficial effects of functional foods include: providing better health during specific physiological states like lactation and pregnancy, strengthening the immune system, reducing the risk of malnutrition, reducing the risk of diseases as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis (Arshad et al 2021).
For instance, miscellaneous unexploited fruits, legumes, spices, and herbs are beneficial commodities that can be used in functional foods offering advantage over regular staple crops. Minor legumes such as pigeon pea, winged bean, Bambara groundnut contain high quality proteins and micro nutrients compared to conventional legume crops. As functional foods, these crops have proteins with essential amino acids, complex carbohydrates, high dietary fiber, unsaturated fat, and bioactive compounds such as peptides and polyphenols which offer remarkable hypocholesterolemic, antihypertensive, antiatherogenic, and hypoglycemic properties (Kumar and Pandey 2020). Therefore, it is of utmost importance to introduce new legume-based functional foods using unexploited legume crops which are affordable to low-income people to fulfill their nutrient requirements. There is a remarkable shift towards the production of non-dairy food products using legumes as a potentially functional ingredient (Kumar and Pandey 2020). In addition, fortifying ready to eat/cook foods like noodles, snacks, soups, meat product, and dairy products with these legumes is another strategy. This approach can provide affordable nutritious foods for low-income people, enhancing their nutritional status, and mitigating food insecurity (Angeles et al 2021).
In addition, certain underutilized agricultural by-products from fruits such as apple pomace, tomato pomace, and fat extracted from rambutan seeds, lemon and orange peels, watermelon rinds, and also vegetables could potentially be used as both functional ingredients and a functional food due to their high nutritional value. These by-products are an affordable alternative source of nutrients, offering a strategy to lower food production costs and a technique to combat food insecurity. Several studies have shown that fruit by-products are high in proteins, minerals, dietary fiber, and unsaturated fatty acids. These have been used as functional ingredients, primarily to produce biscuits, cakes, bread, jam, muffin, and noodles (Lau et al 2021).
Recently, indigenous and underutilized herbs and spices have become popular in the preparation of functional foods. These are obtained as fresh/dried seeds, bulbs, roots, barks, leaves, or pods of plants. They not only enhance the sensory properties of food products, but also act as carriers of functional properties such as antioxidative, antimicrobial, antimutagenic, anti-inflammatory, and immune modulatory effects. Many researchers have discovered innovative ways to improve the functionality of common food products. Examples include enriched meat, dairy products (yoghurt, cheese, butter, ice cream), bakery products (breads), beverages, and cookies/snacks (El-Sayed and Youssef 2019).
Our research teams in the Faculty of Technology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura are investigating the feasibility of using various herbs in functional foods. The projects include:
- Set yoghurt fortified with aqueous extracts of Zingiber officinale (ginger) rhizomes, Clitoria ternatea L. (blue butterfly pea) flowers, and Coccinia grandis (ivy gourd) leaves (Figure 1)
- Sausages using Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (double flower-red) flower powder as a nitrite replacement and functional ingredient (Figure 2)
- Goat-milk-based fermented milk products enriched with nano-encapsulated herb extracts such as Asparagus falcatus (wild asparagus/hathawariya) roots, Withania somnifera (wild cherry/Indian ginseng/amukkara) roots, and Centella asiatica (Asiatic pennywort/gotukola)
Figure 1. Set yoghurt fortified with aqueous extracts of ginger rhizomes, blue butterfly pea flowers, and ivy gourd leaves
Figure 2. Sausages incorporated with Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (double flower-red) flower powder
In our studies, different fortification levels for each powder or aqueous extracts have been tested in these products. The most preferred fortification levels have been incorporated for them to evaluate the quality parameters such as physical, chemical, microbiological, and therapeutic properties, all while meeting Sri Lankan regulatory standards.
However, more research and development are needed to create new methods for extracting and separating active ingredients from herbs and spices. When choosing these ingredients, potential interactions, allergies, or other limitations must be considered to avoid any detrimental outcomes for the targeted consumer groups. In addition, selecting the appropriate delivery medium and integrating appropriate functional ingredients at an effective concentration for functional foods requires careful consideration to achieve desired nutritional and health-promoting effects.
Reference:
- Angeles, J.G.C., Villanueva, J.C., Uy, L.Y.C., Mercado, S.M.Q., Tsuchiya, M.C.L., Lado, J.P., Angelia, M.R.N., Bercansil-Clemencia, M.C.M., Estacio, M.A.C. & Torio, M.A.O. 2021 ‘Legumes as functional food for cardiovascular disease’. Applied Science, 11, 5475. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11125475
- Arshad, M. S., Khalid, W., Ahmad, R. S., Khan, M. K., Ahmad, M. H., Safdar, S., Kousar, S., Munir, H., Shabbir, U., Zafarullah, M., Nadeem, M., Asghar, Z. & Suleria, H.A.R. 2021 Functional foods and human health: An overview, M.S. Arshad & M.H. Ahmad (Eds.), IntechOpen. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99000
- El-Sayed, S.M. & Youssef, A.M. 2019 ‘Potential application of herbs and spices and their effects in functional dairy products’. Heliyon, 5(6), e01989.
- 2025 ‘The state of food security and nutrition in the world 2025 – Addressing high food price inflation for food security and nutrition. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6008en.
- Kumar, S. & Pandey, G. 2020 ‘Biofortification of pulses and legumes to enhance nutrition’. Heliyon, 6(3), e03682.
- Lau, K. Q., Redzwan, S.M. & Raihanah, S.S. 2021 ‘Utilization of vegetable and fruit by-products as functional ingredient and food’. Frontiers in Nutrition, 8, doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2021.661693.
Dr. Amali U. Alahakoon
Senior Lecturer
Department of Biosystems Technology,
Faculty of Technology,
University of Sri Jayewardenepura
