Probiotic survival in symbiotic yogurt-like cereal-based beverage

The scientific literature and market trends testify to the growing emphasis on the development of dairy-like vegetable based products, including food matrices based on fruit, vegetables and cereals, able to meet the needs of consumers allergic/intolerant, on cholesterol-restricted diets, and/or vegans. Together with the formulations based on soy flour, yogurt-like products produced from cereal flours, have been receiving increasing attention due to the good balance of texture, flavor, and nutritional properties in the final product. As substitutes of dairy productions, the corresponding non-dairy foods yogurt represent a novel alternative for the consumption of probiotic bacteria. In order to produce yogurt-like cereal-based beverages, a mixture of rice, barley, and oat flours and concentrated red grape must were used. In addition to standard formulation, we prepared a β-glucans enriched beverage using a flour of barley selected for its β-glucans content (12 g of β-glucans per 100 g of flour). β-glucans have been reported to be highly fermentable by the intestinal microbiota in the caecum and colon, and can enhance both growth rate and lactic acid production of microbes isolated from the human intestine. Throughout the technological phases, a commercial yogurt starter cultures and a selected strain of Lactobacillus plantarum were separately used to perform lactic acid fermentation (30 °C, 8 hours). During the storage at 4 °C, we assessed the survival of 7 probiotic strains ( Lactobacillus acidophilus LA5, L. plantarum CECT 8328, Lactobacillus johnsonii CECT 289, Lactobacillus fermentum CECT 8448, Lactobacillus reuteri CECT 925, Lactobacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei LC-01 , L. plantarum WCFS1) in the standard yogurt-like cereal-based beverage and in β-glucans enriched beverage (symbiotic yogurt-like cereal-based beverage).