Cyclodextrins as food ingredients Lajos Szente* and Jozsef Szejtli CYCLOLAB, Cyclodextrin Research and Development Laboratory Ltd., H-1525 Budapest, PO Box 437, Hungary (tel: +36-1-206-5136; fax: +36-1-347-6068; e-mail: cyclolab@cyclolab.hu) The present paper deals with the practical aspects of the utilization of cyclodextrins and cyclodextrin complexes in the food industry. The molecular encapsulation of lipophilic food ingredients with cyclodextrin improves the stability of flavours, vitamins, colourants and unsaturated fats, etc., both in physical and chemical sense leading to extended product shelf-life. Accelerated and long-term storage stabi- lity test results showed that the stability of cyclodextrin- entrapped food ingredients surpassed that of the tradition- ally formulated ones. Technological advantages of the use of cyclodextrins in foods and food processing technologies are also manifested in improved sensory, nutritional and performance properties. Examples of marketed cyclodex- trin-based food products for demonstration of the sig- nificance of cyclodextrin technology in the food industry are provided. # 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Introduction Cyclodextrins (CDs) are inexpensive enzyme-modified starch derivatives, which have been industrially pro- duced. These starch derivatives are non-toxic ingre- dients, are not absorbed in the upper gastrointestinal tract, and are completely metabolized by the colon microflora. b-Cyclodextrin (bCD) has been on the GRAS list since 1998, as a flavour carrier and protec- tant, at a level of 2% in numerous food products. Cyclodextrins can be utilized in foods mainly as car- riers for molecular encapsulation of flavours and other sensitive ingredients, but considering that CDs are not hygroscopic—moreover, they are water-retention- improving, homogeneous, pure substances—a very broad field of their utilization begins to assert itself. Flavour substances of natural and synthetic origin have been widely used in human nutrition. A number of disadvantages are brought about by their direct utiliza- tion, e.g.:  raw materials are not of constant composition, their flavour/aroma content depends on har- vesting time, processing, size, sort and growing site of the product;  natural products may contain microbiological contaminations and sometimes even parasitic infestation;  their aroma content decreases on storage, and can also involve an undesirable alteration in the ratio of certain components;  the shelf life is limited, the storage of natural sources of certain aromas constitute serious sto- rage problems. To evade these disadvantages, concentrates, e.g. spice oleoresins, which are the solvent extracts of spices, or essential oils and flavours obtained mainly by steam distillation, have been used in the food industry and cosmetics for over a century. They became accepted during the 1980s as a common ingredient for the food manufacturer; their production and consumption have been steady over the last decade. Extracted or distilled ingredients of spices are generally converted to solid powder-like products, sim- ply by spreading the oleoresins or oils onto salt or starch, dextrins, or microencapsulating them with gum arabic, cellulose ethers, or starch derivatives. The pow- der-flavours offer the food manufacturer a clean, stan- dardized form of what was once a variable, difficultly dosable, unreliable ingredient. The price of a b-cyclo- dextrin encapsulated flavour product will be not much higher than that of a microencapsulated flavour for- mulation, since the present price of the food grade bCD is between US$ 5–6 kg. 0924-2244/$ - see front matter # 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2003.09.019 Trends in Food Science & Technology 15 (2004) 137–142 Review * Corresponding author.