Functional Foods

Recently, the research done worldwide on indigenous fermented foods is to improve the nutritional value of foods being utilized at the rural level. Enhancing the nutritional value of food for low income groups is the first step to attract global attention to rely upon renewable natural resources (handbook of IFD). Now the fermented food, either from animal or plant source are an essential part of our daily diet. Dietary habit of any culture indicates their sensory qualities and preparation methods. The preparation of some traditional fermented foods is a household art while the preparation others e.g sugarcane, soybean is carried out at large commercial scale (lary r beuchat book chapter 3).
The use of enzymes for the processing of food traditionally

The term functional foods was first used by Japanese scientist in 1980 and refers to foods that contain ingredients that are helpful to human body as well as nutritious. Functional foods have the potential to reduce disease and health care cost as well as promoting health (Waltham, 1998). As the consumer interest has been tilted from medicines to these functional foods for their routine ailments. So there is high levels of research area for scientist to work on new generation of functional foods with high levels of health benefits (Goldberg and Williams 1991). While on the other hand in some countries this functional food category is not legally recognized (Meyer,

All sources have their unique properties and benefits among them sugarcane has high phytochemical properties. Sugarcane is of great interest in Southeast Asia. It is grown because it has high economic value of its products. Almost 80 percent of the world sugar is produced from it and the rest from sugar beet. Sugarcane juice is used to cure patients suffering from diseases like jaundice, hemorrhage and other urinary diseases (Amandeep Singh, Uma Ranjan Lal 2015). Sugarcane juice has also been used as anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antidiabetic, diuretic, and also for other purposes. Hence it is the cheapest source or energy, sugar and curing these diseases (Hayat Muhammad Mukhtar 2015). The stem and root of sugarcane plant are used to cure urinary and skin diseases. These are also used for diseases like bronchitis, minor heart diseases, loss of milk production, cough, anemia, intestinal disfunction and also for curing high blood pressure (Mira et al.,