Food Science and Agriculture: Research Highlights Vol. 9

Edible flowers are moving from ornamental garnish and traditional culinary use towards a broader role as functional foods and ingredients. Their appeal rests on sensory diversity, low energy density in the fresh state, and substantial interspecific variation in dietary fibre, minerals and specialised metabolites, particularly phenolic acids, flavonoids, anthocyanins, carotenoids and, in selected taxa, glucosinolates and volatile compounds. This critical narrative review evaluates whether these compositional attributes translate into credible health benefits and identifies the methodological conditions needed for such claims. Literature published from 1 January 2000 to 18 June 2026 was selected through multidisciplinary scholarly sources, supplemented by citation searching and bibliographic verification. The evidence consistently shows that edible flowers are chemically heterogeneous rather than a nutritionally uniform food category. Antioxidant capacity, enzyme inhibition, antimicrobial effects and anti-inflammatory or neuroprotective activities are frequently demonstrated in chemical assays, cell systems and model organisms, but the strength of inference declines sharply when these findings are extrapolated to normal dietary intake. Simulated digestion studies show that bioaccessibility is compound- and matrix-dependent, and the limited human evidence primarily demonstrates absorption and metabolism rather than prevention or treatment of disease. Processing can improve shelf life and ingredient functionality while also altering phenolic and pigment profiles. Safety remains integral to any functional-food proposition because botanical misidentification, intrinsic toxicants, pesticide residues, heavy metals and microbial contamination can offset potential benefits. The most defensible interpretation is therefore that selected, correctly identified, food-grade edible flowers are promising sources of sensory and bioactive diversity, whereas claims of clinically meaningful health effects remain insufficiently substantiated. Progress requires standardised composition reporting, realistic serving-size exposure estimates, validated digestion and metabolism models, well-characterised food matrices, safety surveillance and adequately powered human intervention studies.