Lemongrass: a useful ingredient for functional foods

Abstract

Functional foods are termed as “food for specified health use”, this term basically originated from Chinese saying “Food and medicine are isogenic”. Functional foods are on main focus due to their health benefits and nontoxic behavior. In addition to their nutritional benefits, functional foods found effective against some health problems due to their antimicrobial, anti-cancerous and anti-inflammatory properties. Large number of functional food products are being developed and have found prominent place in present market such as functional drinks, functional bakery and dairy products. One of the important herb is lemongrass ( Cymbopogan citratus) with more than 500 species, wide growing capabilities and unique functional properties, catching usefulness in many of the daily life food commodities. All forms of lemongrass such as leave, stalk, oil, flavor used for having best minerals and antioxidants. A lot of work needed to explore the functional properties of this herb by analyzing in different conditions and utilizing in various food items for human consumption such as functional drinks at community level. The review designed to concise the nutrional and functional importance of lemongrass in addition to functional foods formulated from various sources.