To encapsulate is to wrap a nutrient, enzyme, or other valuable ingredient inside a protective shell — a capsule, bead, or coating — packaging the active ingredient at microscopic scale. The capsule wall, made from starch, protein, gum, or lipid, protects its cargo from oxygen, moisture, heat, and stomach acid, then releases it where and when wanted: flavours that survive baking and burst on chewing, probiotics that reach the intestine alive, omega-3 oils shielded from rancidity, iron that does not discolour or taste metallic in fortified flour. Encapsulation turns fragile or unpleasant ingredients into well-behaved ones. The technology spans spray-drying, coacervation, and liposome formation, and it underpins much of modern functional food — the vitamin in the cereal, the flavour in the chewing gum, the culture in the yoghurt, each in its own microscopic parcel.