RISKS AND BENEFITS OF PLANT SECONDARY METABOLITES FOR ANIMAL AND HUMAN FEEDING

Abstract

Food must not only have value due to its sustainable productive yield or its nutritional contribution, but it must also be safe for the consumer and have a low environmental impact. Plant Secondary Metabolites are chemical compounds that not only have great ecological importance because they participate in the adaptation processes of plants to their environment. but also, they confer organoleptic, therapeutic or anti-nutritional properties to the plant foods that contain them, so they could play a leading role in the integral health of living beings so strongly threatened by Climate Change or pandemics, The present work reviews the general aspects of these compounds and their attribute as anti-nutritional factors, bioactive substances or prebiotics, depending on the animal or human food context.