Abstract: Food nutrition is always a research focus and hotspot in the field of food science. The consumption of functional foods has increased year by year. Model organisms are essential in the evaluation of food functionalities. Caenorhabditis elegans, a small free-living soil nematode, has been extensively used as an experimental in vivo system for biological studies due to its small size, short generation time, and suitability for genetic analysis. In this article, we summarize and review the homology of signaling pathways between C. elegans and humans, the classification and evaluation of functional food factors, and recent progress in the application of C. elegans in food nutritional evaluation, with the aim of providing a basis for food nutrition research and the development of functional foods.

Key words: food nutrition, Caenorhabditis elegans, signaling pathways, nutritional evaluation