UTILIZATION OF SOME CEREALS IN PRODUCTION OF FERMENTED FUNCTIONAL FOODS

Abstract

Functional foods are receiving much attention recently because of their potential role in improving consumers health, and future trends are moving towards this type of foods because of their health effects on the consumer. Consumers have increased their demand for functional foods, which have a role in improving health and may prevent some diseases. Functional foods include a number of foods that contain functional ingredients for health benefits besides their nutritional value. Therefore, this study was carried out to develop and evaluate some of functional fermented cereals products (i.e. cereal-based fermented beverages and tarhana) by combining the health benefits of starter cultures of probiotic bacteria and the nutritional value of whole cereal grains meal (i.e. wheat, oat and barley). The chemical composition and total phenolic compounds of different whole grains meal were determined to provide us with data that may employ as guidelines for the production of some functional fermented foods. The suitability of different whole grains meal for the production of cereal-based fermented beverages and tarhana were studied under different fermentation conditions. The microbiological, physical,