Abstract
The demand for nutrient-rich foods is steadily rising. Algal foods have gained a lot of attention lately because of their health benefits and nutritional worth. To overcome the challenges caused by environmental, seasonal, and nutritional changes, algae use a variety of routes and create a variety of phytochemicals. The combination of macro and micro nutrients also changes, which can result in the development of hazardous metabolites in some cases. Proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, and vitamins are the key components produced by algae. Similarly, because of their superior nutritional value, many microalgae are used as a whole-cell food source. The environmental influence on the production of these macronutrients and species employed as functional foods will be discussed in this chapter.