Halophytes: Nutrients, Bioactive Compounds, Chemical Characterisation and Potential Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The world is facing a global hunger crisis of historic proportions, fuelled by climate change, health crises, and armed conflicts. Indeed, in the last 2 years, the number of people worldwide experiencing or at risk of suffering from hunger has more than doubled. Urgent solutions are sorely needed to resolve this food insecurity crisis and prevent future disasters. Hence, it is time to seriously consider alternative sources of nutrition, such as halophyte plants, which can thrive in the most adverse conditions, including salinity levels higher than those of seawater, while still providing high yields and exhibiting remarkable nutritional and functional properties. These plants with unique characteristics are distributed almost everywhere across the world, and can thrive in areas ranging from saline deserts to salt marshes. To survive in these extreme environments, they have developed a variety of special mechanisms for maintaining homeostasis, such as the notable synthesis of different secondary metabolites with potent biological activities—antioxidant and antimicrobial—as is the case for polyphenols. Thus, their contribution extends beyond their role as a source of nutrients and comprises the expansion of our therapeutic arsenal, and the reduction in food waste through molecules acting as preservatives. The possibilities are numerous, and exploring and putting them at the service of the population is of the utmost urgency. Hence, this Special Issue, which aims to gather high-quality scientific research addressing the study of halophytes, will cover the following aspects:

• Nutrients, anti-nutrients, bioactive compounds, and contaminants;
• Sensory properties;
• Biological activities;
• New methods for nutritional and chemical analyses of halophytes, especially those which are environmentally friendly.

Both research and review articles are welcome. We look forward to your contributions.

Dr. Maria Lopes
Prof. Dr. Fernando Ramos
Guest Editors

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