Recent trends in fortifying bread with nutrients: Comprehensive insights into chemical, physical, functional, and nutritional attributes

Abstract

Bread, a globally consumed staple, offers significant potential for nutrient fortification due to its widespread appeal and simple production. However, traditional bread often lacks essential nutrients, and nutrient losses during baking exacerbate deficiencies in vitamins, bioactive compounds, and dietary fibers. This review explores advancements in fortifying bread with water- and fat-soluble vitamins, bioactive components (phenolics, PUFAs, essential oils, peptides), dietary fibers, and encapsulated nutrients. It highlights the resulting changes in bread's physicochemical, techno-functional, and nutritional properties, while addressing challenges like nutrient stability, and sensory impacts. Fortified bread provides health benefits, including improved antioxidant activity, glycemic control, and nutrient delivery. Innovations such as encapsulation enhance nutrient stability and consumer acceptance. This review emphasizes fortified bread's dual role as a functional food and staple, contributing to global health improvement and advancing research in functional food development.