Dairy and Health
Microbial fermentation has long been used as a means of food preservation. Early dairy fermentation relied on spontaneous microbial activity in milk by indigenous bacteria and catalysts. Modern fermentation uses starter cultures, which are chosen and bred to encourage desirable characteristics (e.g.: consistency, vitability). Lactic acid bacteria produce, throughout the fermentation process, a number of bioactive bacteria.
From these there are desirable and undesirable components, among the desirable being bioactive peptides and among the undesirable being biogenic amines (BAs).
Recent studies of this aspect of dairy produce urges scientists to push for legislation to limit harmful levels of BAs in dairy products, as, currently, there is no limit for potentially toxic levels of histamine and tyramine in produce).
Prebiotics, Probiotics, Fermentation, and Health
Often, prebiotics are added to food fermentation to improve the performance of probiotics. However, recent research has found that when prebiotics are fermented in the gut, their potential goes way beyond helping probiotic growth.
In reaction to this, studies are being carried out to find how the fermentation of certain prebiotics can help to prevent diseases like osteoporosis, obesity, and colorectal cancer. A few push backs to these new developments, perhaps, are the stringent regulations on probiotics, which are detrimentally affecting the field and limiting application.
The search for probiotics is on-going and is thus far being carried out even with the help of genetic and screening methods. In any case, the idea that food fermentation could help regulate and stop diseases is a truly attractive one and hope for its future application is high.
Sources: Recent Advances in Microbial Fermentation for Dairy and Health (Daragh Hill, Ivan Sugrue, Elke Arendt, Colin Hill, Catherine Stanton, R. Paul Ross)