Did you know? It's estimated that fermentation practices have been around since as early as 6000 BC, when wine was first being made in Caucasus and Mesopotamia. Today, there are roughly 5000 varieties of fermented foods and beverages prepared and consumed worldwide, which accounts for between five and forty percent of daily meals. Fermented Foods and Beverages of the World is an up-to-date review on fermentation practices, covering its storied past, cultural aspects, microbiology, biochemistry, nutrition, and functionality.

With contributions from 24 seasoned fermentation authorities, this book begins with a concise introduction to food fermentation - one of the oldest biotechnological processes - including its history and global varieties. After covering the various preparation techniques and culinary methods, the book addresses the microbiology-phenotypic and genotypic characterizations, the identifications of functional microorganisms, the functional and technological properties, and issues related to food safety.

The book also explores the functional properties of fermentation, how it improves product shelf life, ensures food safety, enriches nutritional supplements, and increases the probiotic functions in some foods. The rising popularity of probiotic and prebiotic foods and the health benefits they are known for are also discussed. Covering many undocumented minor or lesser-known ethnic fermented products, Fermented Foods and Beverages of the World is an all-in-one guide to global fermentation practices and consumption behaviors.

This book contains novel research and laboratory techniques to study the immune cell molecular behaviour and responses to soluble factors produced by probiotic bacteria and intestinal/probiotic co-cultures that will contribute to advanced scientific knowledge and the commercial development of probiotics. Such understanding will allow scientists to identify new probiotic strains with enhanced immunomodulatory effects, ascertain minimal probiotic dose requirements, distinguish the type of immunological response to probiotics and identify potential probiotic soluble factors that induce immunological reactions. This book is ideally suited for researchers in food and pharmaceutical industries as well as universities; postgraduate students in microbiology and immunology will also find this book to be useful. This book is suitable as a classroom textbook for advanced microbiology, bacteriology and immunology, and it is highly recommended for university and research institution libraries around the world.

In this age, societies take great pains to protect their populations against exposure to undesirable microbes. Pasteurization, sterilization, sanitation and HACCP procedures have been instrumental in this effort, particularly for gastro-intestinal diseases. We are therefore much less exposed to microbes, good or bad, than in ancient times. An important feature of this book is the exploration of Escherichia coli as a probiotic culture. This is very much forward thinking, and challenges the current paradigm. Indeed, probiotics have mainly been selected from lactic cultures, and exploring the use of coliforms has novelty. Another important feature of this book is the development of an automated assay for the evaluation of interactions between probiotics and pathogens. The agarose-supernatant strategy is a novel development of the microplate systems which has great potential for rapid screening of effective cultures.

Most naturally occurring folate derivatives in foods are highly sensitive to temperature, oxygen, and light, and their functionality is affected by food processing. Their stability is also pH dependant. Further alternative strategies to fortify and increase the level of folates through starter culture selection, combination, metabolic bioengineering as well as improved storage and cooking methods have failed to yield high enough dietary folates. The enrichment of flour as a nutritional intervention programme to try and correct problems of folic acid deficiency such as neural tube defects has been put in place; it is the first attempt to design functional foods that could alleviate folate deficiency. Currently, mandatory fortification of grain and other foods with rich folates are in place. Clearly, the use of fortification has immense potential health benefits over the recent decades as advancements of science recognised the importance of this vitamin in alleviating a number of developmental and degenerative disorders. Folate is of great interest and of great clinical value, a veritable panacea among functional foods and nutraceuticals. A large number of health benefits are associated with regular folic acid consumption either in its natural form or supplements. This book elaborates an alternative approach to protect and stabilise the bio-functionality of folic acid through a novel and robust microencapsulation technique. It contains comprehensive science and technology information on folic acid that describes how to protect it from natural plant sources during processing through novel encapsulation techniques and to produce innovative and smart foods and supplements. This book is suited for researchers in food and pharmaceutical industries and universities as well as for postgraduate research students in foods and supplements. This book is a suitable research and textbook for advanced vitamins, food supplements and nutraceuticals, and highly recommended for university and research institution.

Fermented foods are one of the indispensable components of dietary culture in every community in the world. Although there are numerous fermented milk foods produced in the world, the simple and humble yoghurt has evolved significantly from a basic fermented product to a more sophisticated functional and therapeutic food. It is not an exaggeration to say that this simple food in its recent years of evolution has taken over milk as a perfect food. The recent surge in the popularity of yoghurts stems from not only its pleasant, aromatic flavour and its many variations of sweetened and fruit types and beverages, but also its increasing reputation as a functional and therapeutic food. This book provides a detailed overview of the current development in the evolution of synbiotic yoghurts in relation to its production, technology and applications.