Essential oils in foods: extraction, stabilization, and toxicity

Due to their biological properties, essential oils are used as an ingredient to enhance the functionality of various products such as foodstuff, drinks, perfumes, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, or green pesticides. Currently, research is mainly focused on developing innovative and eco-friendly techniques to extract essential oils and subsequently stabilize them through encapsulation in order to obtain GRAS (generally recognized as safe) natural products. The emerging market of essential oils demands diverse analytical methods and improved regulations for their marketing and application.