Microbiological Considerations for Milk Products
S. Sarkar*
Quality Assurance, Metro Dairy Limited, Barrackpore-Barasat Link Road, Subhasnagar, P.O. Neelgunj Bazar,Kolkata-700121, West Bengal, India.
*Corresponding Author
S. Sarkar,
Quality Assurance, Metro Dairy Limited, Barrackpore-Barasat Link Road, Subhasnagar, P.O. Neelgunj Bazar,
Kolkata-700121, West Bengal, India.
E-mail: drsurajitsarkar@yahoo.co.in
Article Type: Editorial
Received: February 20, 2013; Published: Aprial 22, 2013
Citation: S. Sarkar. (2013) Microbiological Considerations for Milk Products. Int J Microbiol Adv Immunol, 01(1e), 1. doi: dx.doi.org/10.19070/2329-9967-130001e
Copyright: S. Sarkar © 2013 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Renewed interest of consumers towards healthful food has projected probiotic supplemented food as a functional food in the current era of self-care and complementary medicine. Cultured milk products have been extensively used as a vehicle for incorporation of probiotics to enhance its prophylactic properties resulting in diverse probiotic supplemented foods. Consumers are purchasing probiotic foods based upon label information but they are not confident regarding its health claims. Most of the probiotic supplemented food available in the global market could not meet the desired level of viable population of probiotics.
Reviewed literature indicated that cultured milk products must contain sufficient population of beneficial microorganisms during food processing, at the point of sale and in host gastro-intestinal tract to exhibit health benefits. Stability of probiotics in supplementing media as well as gastrointestinal tract environment is of prime concern for the retention of desired level of viable population to exert health benefits. Various techniques such as selection of acid and bile resistant strains, use of oxygen impermeable packaging materials, two-step fermentation, stress adaptation, inclusion of micro-nutrient, sonication of bacteria and microencapsulation could be adopted to retain desired level of probiotics. For sustaining minimum therapeutic dosage (106 cells/ml) higher initial concentration (108-109 cells/ml) of beneficial cultures in milk may be suggested
Technological and dietetic characteristics of probiotics differ with the species, therefore generalization of health benefits for a particular strain is not scientific. Further well-designed placebo-controlled studies are emerging for determining the optimal dose, duration of treatment, selection probiotic strains, their mode of actions and efficacy of multi-strain preparations prior to their recommendations for therapeutic or preventive use.
