Writing in the journal LWT- Food Science and Technology, researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil report that addition of inulin and oligofructose fibres boosted the sensory qualities of the cheese.
"The potentially synbiotic petit-suisse cheeses obtained in the present study turned out to be feasible vehicles for probiotc and prebiotic ingredients," wrote the authors, led byHaissa Cardarelli.
"Cheeses with oligofructose and/or inulin... showed to beexcellent in terms of prebiotic potential, good viable counts of [probiotic] L. acidophilus and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp.
lactis and sensory quality" they added.
Probiotics are bacteria found in the gut that are understood to have health benefits.
Prebiotics are ingredients that stimulate growth of probiotics in the gut, and synbiotics are a combination of the two.
Most foods containing probiotic bacteria are found in the refrigerated section of supermarkets as the bacteria is destroyed by heat and other processing conditions.
This has given the dairy sector, already used to handling live bacteria for the manufacture of yoghurt, a major advantage in probiotic foods - probiotic drinking yoghurts are currently the fastes growing dairy product in Europe.
The new research reports eight different pilot-scale formulations of petit-suisse cheeses using probiotic cultures Lactobacilluse acidophilus and B. animalis subsp.
lactis (both from Danisco), plus different combinations of prebiotic fibres inulin (Beneo ST, Orafti), oligofructose (Beneo P95, Orafti), or oligosaccharides from honey.
Acceptance of the cheeses by a panel of 560 tasters increased only for cheeses supplemented with oligofructose and/or inulin during storage.
The cheese made with the honey oligsaccharides were not readily acceptable to the tasters.
The researchers stated that the cheeses with inulin and oligofructose could be considered prebiotic because, based on previous studies specifying the necessary dosesrequired toproduce a prebiotic effect, the doses were sufficient.
"Concerning the achievement of high fructan contents, which may promote intensified prebiotic effects, the trials involving inulin and oligofructose, either alone orcombined were observed to be the most promising ones," said the researchers.
"The extensive and widespread evidence to support prebiotic efficacy for inulin and oligofructose, which are selectively metabolised at different portions of the large intestine, is an additional advantage in improving the activities of beneficial intestinal microorganisms and promising for future research projects to be designed to confirm the in vivo effectiveness of the product," they concluded.
Source: LWT - Food Science and Technology Published on-line ahead of print, doi: 10.1016/j.lwt.2007.07.001
"Inulin and oligofructose improve sensory quality and increase the probiotic viable count in potentially synbiotic petit-suisse cheese" Authors: H.R. Cardarelli, F.C.A. Buriti, I.A. Castro, S.M.I. Saad