Functional Ice Cream Technology

Various factors besides changes in people’s lifestyle have altered the consumers understanding of dietary, health and welfare life. As a result, interest and demand for functional foods, which have been gaining momentum and importance in recent years, have increased day by day. Milk and dairy products have an important place among the functional foods considered as the foods of today and tomorrow. These products are very convenient in producing functional products due to their positive health effects in daily diet. Ice cream, which has a wide product distribution within this group, provides an advantage in the functional products market because it has a high nutritional value, its composition can be easily changed and it is a food consumed by individuals of all ages. This increases the number of studies on the functionalization of ice cream. When the studies conducted for this purpose were screened, it was determined that probiotic, prebiotic and symbiotic, antioxidant and phenolic compounds, bioactive protein-based components, whey and its products, various fatty acids like omega-3 and omega-6, some sweeteners such as stevia, honey and sugar alcohols, dietary fibers, some vitamins and minerals were used extensively in the literature. In this review, nutraceutical components commonly used in functional ice cream production technology are grouped and studies on functional ice cream are included.