Food Research Institute

Pelikánová, J. – Liptáková, D. – Valík, Ľ.
Suitability of lactic acid bacteria for fermentation of maize and amaranth
Journal of Food and Nutrition Research, 54, 2015, No. 4, s. 354-364

Jana Pelikánová, Department of Nutrition and Food Assessment, Institute of Biochemistry, Nutrition and Health Protection, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Radlinského 9, 812 37 Bratislava, Slovakia. E-mail: xpelikanova@stuba.sk

Received 3 June 2015; 1st revised 19 July 2015; 2nd revised 11 August 2015; accepted 17 August 2015; published online 30 October 2015.

Summary: Fermentation of cereals by lactic acid bacteria may represent a cheap way of production of nutritionally rich foods. It can also bring a new trend in the development of new functional foods suitable for celiac patients or for people suffering from lactose intolerance. In our work, we focused on the growth and metabolic activity of selected lactobacilli in cereal mashes prepared from amaranth or maize flour, saccharose and water or milk. All strains showed sufficient growth and survival in mashes with the growth rates ranging from 0.155 log CFU·ml^-1h^-1 to 0.819 log CFU·ml^-1h^-1. At the end of cold storage, densities of lactobacilli were maintained above the limit 10⁶ CFU·ml^-1 (10⁶ CFU·g^-1) that is essential to maintain a potential probiotic effect in the gastrointestinal tract. After storage, 264–8100 mg·kg^-1 lactic acid was found to be contained, with significantly higher contents in milk-based mashes. The pH levels in the products were reduced to 3.6–5.5. From 2 g of saccharose added to 100 g of the mashes, only small amounts of 0.11–0.95 mg were utilized by lactobacilli during fermentation. This means that they used other easily accessible carbohydrate sources from the cereal components.

Keywords: lactobacilli; celiac disease; cereal; pseudocereal; fermentation

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