Non-dairy probiotic food products: An emerging group of functional foods

Abstract

The functional food sector has shown tremendous growth in recent years with the application of probiotic bacteria as "food additives". The utilization of probiotic bacteria in food presents many challenges related to their growth, survival, viability, stability and functionality in food processing, storage and consumption as well as changes of sensory characteristics of probiotic foods. Although dairy foods are currently the most common food carrier to deliver probiotics, an increasing number of non-dairy food matrices exhibit potential for delivery of probiotics. This review provides more recent insight into the emergence of non-dairy probiotics products, the interactions between probiotics and different food matrices and the challenges in developing such products. Some of the technical issues are also reviewed and discussed. These issues include the efficacy of probiotic bacteria in non-chilled, low pH or high water activity foods; the potential loss of bacterial viability, additionally unwanted fermentation and changes of the sensory characteristics of food products which may result in poor microbiological quality and low acceptability to consumers.

Nutritional and Microbiological Quality of Tiger Nut Tubers (Cyperus esculentus), Derived Plant-Based and Lactic Fermented Beverages

“…Besides lactic fermentation of foods and beverages, the addition of lactic acid bacteria cultures per se can bring numerous advantages by the production of compounds, like exopolysaccharides, which modify the texture [6]. The use of probiotic lactic acid bacteria to develop new functional beverages from fruits or vegetables is challenging, because the growth or survival of bacteria in such media has to be carefully examined [70][71][72][73][74][75]. But the interest is even more significant for food matrices that contain a high content of dietary fiber, and can serve as a prebiotic [71,75].…”

Putative probiotic lactic acid bacteria isolated from sauerkraut fermentations

“…Furthermore, these strains may be more appropriate for application in vegetable products, particularly fermented foods such as sauerkraut itself. In fact, due to their origin, they should maintain a high viability in sauerkraut and related products, not leading to a significant change of flavor and other sensory properties, important characteristics for the application of probiotics in non-dairy food products [ 38 ].…”

Review on Non-Dairy Probiotics and Their Use in Non-Dairy Based Products

“…It is important to consider the sensory acceptance by the consumers during the development of non-dairy probiotic products with respect to appearance, aroma, texture or taste, with the goal of conveying the direction for the optimal production and formulation of these products [32]. The sensory properties of non-dairy probiotic foods may be influenced by interactions between different probiotics strains and food substrates, where textures, taste, flavor, aroma, and color might be improved or aggravated by the production of different metabolic compounds such as lactic acid and other metabolites in living cells by different species during processing and storage [13].…”