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BackgroundIn vivo assays cannot always be conducted because of ethical reasons, technical constraints or costs, but a better understanding of the digestive process, especially in infants, could be of great help in preventing food-related pathologies and in developing new formulas with health benefits. In this context, in vitro dynamic systems to simulate human digestion and, in particular, infant digestion could become increasingly valuable.ObjectiveTo simulate the digestive process through the use of a dynamic model of the infant gastroenteric apparatus to study the digestibility of starch-based infant foods.DesignUsing M.I.D.A (Model of an Infant Digestive Apparatus), the oral, gastric and intestinal digestibility of two starch-based products were measured: 1) rice starch mixed with distilled water and treated using two different sterilization methods (the classical method with a holding temperature of 121°C for 37 min and the HTST method with a holding temperature of 137°C for 70 sec) and 2) a rice cream with (premium product) or without (basic product) an aliquot of rice flour fermented by Lactobacillus paracasei CBA L74. After the digestion the foods were analyzed for the starch concentration, the amount of D-glucose released and the percentage of hydrolyzed starch.ResultsAn in vitro dynamic system, which was referred to as M.I.D.A., was obtained. Using this system, the starch digestion occurred only during the oral and intestinal phase, as expected. The D-glucose released during the intestinal phase was different between the classical and HTST methods (0.795 grams for the HTST versus 0.512 for the classical product). The same analysis was performed for the basic and premium products. In this case, the premium product had a significant difference in terms of the starch hydrolysis percentage during the entire process.ConclusionsThe M.I.D.A. system was able to digest simple starches and a more complex food in the correct compartments. In this study, better digestibility of the premium product was revealed.

In recent years, scientific interest in the development of non‐dairy‐based functional foods is increasing progressively and the fermentation of cereals, legumes, fruits and vegetable‐based foods is becoming an important scientific research topic for the production of new probiotic products. In particular, legumes represent a possible alternative to protein foods from animal origins and an adequate fermentation substrate as they contain high amount of nutrients, such as proteins, carbohydrates, fibres, vitamins, and minerals, which are all useful to the growth and metabolic activity of certain microorganisms. This work focuses on the feasibility of developing a dry legume‐based functional product using a fermentation process carried out on a 10% w/v navy bean suspension, in a lab‐scale stirred batch reactor. After soaking and cooking dried navy beans, the fermentation tests performed on the resulting medium using Lactobacillus paracasei CBA L74 showed a maximum bacterial count of 109 CFU/mL after 20 hours and a maximum lactic acid concentration of 1.9 g/L after 16 hours of process time. A freeze‐drying process was performed on the fermented bean suspension, showing a 2‐log microbial reduction and a bacterial viability in the resulting probiotic powder of 3.7 × 108 CFU/g.