Peanut probiotic: Researchers develop commercially viable lactose-free probiotic ‘yoghurt’
The Indian research team developed the new yoghurt like probiotic product from peanut milk using a single probiotic culture, which could appeal to lactose intolerant and vegan consumers, they said.
Writing in the journal LWT - Food Science and Technology, the team noted that while probiotics are often produced and marketed as nutraceuticals in the form of capsules and powders, the most popular delivery format for probiotics is to add the strains directly in to viable food products such as diary-based yoghurts and fermented milk drinks.
“Food is considered the more convenient way of delivering probiotics in daily diets as compared to capsules or powders,” noted the Indian team, led by Sangita Bansal from he CAR-Central Institute of Post-harvest Engineering & Technology- who reiterated that dairy foods are often seen as the ideal food matrix for delivering probiotics, “owing to their high consumer acceptability and better viability of these organisms.”
“But a number of factors like cholesterol content, allergy to milk proteins and lactose intolerance necessitate exploring other non-dairy alternatives,” they said – noting that while attempts have previously been made to develop yoghurt-like delivery formats from soy milk, the characteristic ‘beany’ flavour of soy is seen as a barrier to wider uptake and acceptance.
Furthermore, the they noted that since a single probiotic culture was used, the production of the functional peanut yoghurt would be of consistent quality in a commercial or industrial setting.
Peanut milk ‘yoghurt’
Bansal and colleagues developed a yoghurt-like probiotic product from peanut milk utilising a single probiotic culture of Streptococcus faecalis T110 – without the use of any additional milk solids, gelling agents or other additives.
The conditions for production of the peanut yoghurt were optimised through response surface methodology- which studied the individual and interactive effects of three process variables; inoculum concentration, incubation temperature and time.
They found that an inoculum concentration of 1.9%, with an incubation temperature of 38 °C and 12 hours’ incubation time was optimal for the production of the probiotic peanut yoghurt preparation.
“The process can be used to develop probiotic peanut yoghurt with consistent quality at commercial scale,” concluded team said – noting that the non-dairy yogurts developed in this report “would have more noticeable benefits” for lactose intolerant people and those who follow vegan diets.
Source: LWT - Food Science and Technology
Volume 73, November 2016, Pages 6–12, doi: 10.1016/j.lwt.2016.04.059
“Optimization of process conditions for developing yoghurt like probiotic product from peanut”
Authors: Sangita Bansal, et al
