The antioxidant potential of fermented foods. Challenges and future trends

The major roles of antioxidant compounds in preserving food shelf-life, as well as in providing health-promoting benefits, combined with the increasing concern regarding synthetic antioxidants, is progressively leading the scientific community to focus on natural antioxidants. Polyphenols, bioactive peptides, amino acids, and vitamins are among the most common antioxidant compounds naturally present in foods. Nevertheless, enabling further improvements to food antioxidant activity in vitro, which could potentially reflect on that in vivo, is a topic of the utmost significance. The bioconversion elicited by the use of microbial enzymes, and/or fermentation with selected starters, can be considered a tool for enhancing the activity of bioactive compounds by facilitating their release or changing their structural conformation. Indeed, fermentation is known to affect food features and, although it began as a means to extend food shelf-life, over the last few decades, research shifted to the investigation of its health benefits, among which are those provided by antioxidant compounds. In this framework, this Special Issue aimed to cover the most recent advances in the use of fermentation as a means to enhance food antioxidants’ potential.