Functional ice cream health benefits and sensory implications

The increased interest in foods which improve human health and nutrition has led to the need for academia and food industry to invest in the development of innovative and functional ice cream. Since ice cream is the most popular frozen dairy product, it shows good potential to help people improve their diets by reducing the intake of certain nutrients associated with the increased risk of obesity and other related diseases. Moreover, it supplies beneficial and essential components. However, the reduction or removal of common ice cream ingredients or the addition of uncommon ingredients to the standard formulation must not spoil the sensory characteristics and storage stability of ice cream. Hence, to keep the appeal of ice cream high, the food industry is subjected to constant challenges, since functional ice cream must be tasty as well as beneficial. The review focuses on the healthy aspects and sensory implications of ice cream functionalization. In the first part, different replacing strategies such as the substitution of fat and sugar are discussed. In the second part, ice cream enriched with functional ingredients is debated.