Bioactive peptides (BPs) are specific protein fragments that exert various beneficial effects on human bodies and ultimately influence health, depending on their structural properties and amino acid composition and sequences. By offering promising solutions to solve diverse health issues, the production, characterization, and applications of food‐derived BPs have drawn great interest in the current literature and are of particular interest to the food and pharmaceutical industries. The microbial fermentation of protein from various sources is indubitably a novel way to produce BPs with numerous beneficial health effects. Apart from its lower cost as compared to enzymes, the BPs produced from microbial fermentation can be purified without further hydrolysis. Despite these features, current literature shows dearth of information on the BPs produced from food via microbial fermentation. Hence, there is a strong necessity to explore the BPs obtained from food fermentation for the development of commercial nutraceuticals and functional foods. As such, this review focuses on the production of BPs from different food sources, including the extensively studied milk and milk products, with emphasis on microbial fermentation. The structure–activity (antihypertensive, antioxidant, antimicrobial, opiate‐like, anti‐inflammatory, anticancer/antiproliferative, antithrombotic, hypolipidemic, hypocholesterolemic, and mineral binding) relationship, potential applications, future development, and challenges of BPs obtained from food fermentation are also discussed.

With increasing resource shortage and environmental pollution, it is preferable to utilize materials which are sustainable and biodegradable. Side-streams products generated from the food processing industry is one potential avenue that can be used in a wide range of applications. In this study, the food by-product okara was effectively reused for the extraction of cellulose. Then, the okara cellulose was further employed to fabricate cellulose hydrogels with favorable mechanical properties, biodegrablability, and non-cytotoxicity. The results showed that it could be biodegraded in soil within 28 days, and showed no cytotoxicity on NIH3T3 cells. As a proof of concept, a demostration of wearable and biocompatible strain sensor was achieved, which allowed a good and stable detection of human body movement behaviors. The okara-based hydrogels could provide an alternative platform for further physical and/or chemical modification towards tissue engineering, medical supplies, or smart biomimetic soft materials.