Mustard Seeds as a Bioactive Component of Food

Mustard is a plant that is eagerly cultivated by farmers, due to its mobility across agroclimatic conditions and its high yield. Mustard seeds have thus become a valuable source of many bioactive ingredients, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants (carotenoids, phenolic compounds, tocopherols). The increasingly popularity of natural ingredients in food creation and other industries has made mustard a material for creating new products. The mustard-infused foods developed here have improved properties over the controls. The most common improvements relate to microbiological safety, longer shelf life, slower lipid oxidation, higher protein content and overall better product acceptability. The high content of erucic acid in its seeds, as well as of glucosinolates, mean that mustard has not been widely used in the human food industry or as animal feed. Mustard varieties with reduced levels of erucic acid and glucosinolates are now available on the market. This literature review characterizes the bioactive ingredients present in mustard seeds and presents the already developed possibilities of using mustard seeds in food and as a health-promoting product.