Nutraceuticals in vegetables: New breeding approaches for nutrition, food and health: A review

Abstract

Vegetables are major source of biologically active nutraceuticals and playing an important role in human diet. It has been explored recently as sustainable alternatives for the control and prevention of many diseases. They have received considerable attention in diet because are safe, efficacious, have potential nutritional value as well as therapeutic effects. Among natural dietary supplements, vegetables being low in calories are enriched with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals could be explored at maximum level to ensure healthy environment. Some of the common phyto-nutraceuticals such as lycopene from tomato, carotenoids from carrot etc. play vital role in disease prevention/reduce disease risk factors through antioxidant activities. Functional attributes of many traditional vegetables are being discovered, while new food products are being developed with additional nutraceutic components. Therefore the plant substances which are important in human nutrition must be clearly identified and should be intend to breed cultivars with improved nutritional attributes through conventional and molecular breeding approaches.