Development of new cereal-based probiotic foods

Abstract

Abstract : In the last two decades, the relationship between human health and food has been given special attention. This interest, along with other factors (such as consumers' education level), leads to an obvious increase in the demand for balanced foods with extra-health benefits. In the past five years, 10% of all new products in the EU make reference to health. It has been recently proven that probiotic products (defined as those that contain a single or mixed culture of certain microorganisms) could beneficially affect consumer health. The European probiotic market is estimated to be approximately €370 million and will probably increase in the coming years. The main purpose of this work is to produce new cereal-based probiotic foods with suitable aroma, flavor, and pH. This requires selecting suitable types of both cereal grains and probiotic microorganisms and finding the most appropriate methods (physical and chemical) to monitor fermentation. Malt grains and malt extracts were selected as the fermentation media, while Lactobacillus casei shirota and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were chosen as the probiotic microorganisms Four different media were prepared, analyzed, and used for fermentation with two different types of inocula settings (pure and mixed cultures). The effects of the different fermentation media and the inocula on the final product characteristics such as FAN concentration, pH level, phosphorus, and lactic acid content were investigated. The aroma and flavor of the fermented beverage were also tasted. It was found that the inoculated microorganisms could grow in all media with different growth rates as indicated by the measured parameters (e.g., phosphorus and pH). It was also found that the pH values for the final products were within the acceptable consumption range. According to the results of the tasting sessions, two of the fermented products were found to have acceptable aroma and flavor, but the rest were in need of further improvement (e.g., by adding sugar or saccharine).