Lipid Nanoparticles for Edible Food Packaging

The chapter is focused to discuss the status of food-grade lipid nanoparticles in developing edible films and coatings for enhanced packaging appearance, properties, and further discuss the promising applications in increasing the shelf life of food products. The methods for developing lipid nanoparticles are high energy and low energy approaches, where the high energy approach includes the use of mechanical devices. Further, the various lipid-based nanosystems for fabricating edible food packaging applications include nanoemulsions, nanoliosomes, solid–lipid nanoparticles, and other lipid nanocarriers. In this context, the chapter details the various characteristics features of the mentioned lipid nanoparticles in terms of structure and dimensions, composition, interfacial properties, thickness of interfacial coating layers, surface polarity, environmental effects and digestibility, and other physical properties. Additionally, a discussion on lipid nanoparticle-based edible food packaging for prolonged shelf life of food products with their safety assessment has been made in this chapter.