+44 330 818 7254Santiesteban-López, A. López-Malo, J.J. Gómez-DÃÂÂÂaz, B. Pérez-Armendáriz
Today's consumers can select functional foods from a wide variety of these products with components such as proteins, carotenes, dietary fiber or microorganisms known as "probiotics", among which are those belonging to the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium genera. This work evaluates the effect of the addition of ascorbic acid and L-cysteine as redox potential reducing agents (Eh) on the propagation of a probiotic microorganism, lactobacillus casei, in milk. The reducing agents are added to the milk individually or combined in concentrations of 0, 100 and 200 ppm, in order to obtain the combination that would allow the maximum growth of the probiotic culture. The different combinations of ascorbic acid and L-cysteine were evaluated on the number of colony forming units of L. casei before and after 5 days of incubation in milk. The propagation of the microorganism was analyzed by the count method on MRS agar plates incubated anaerobically at 35 ± 1°C for 72 hours. The combination of the higher concentrations of ascorbic acid (200 ppm) and L-cysteine (100 or 200 ppm) gave the maximum count of L. casei, with a population higher than 1010 CFU/mL. These additives proved to be effective in the multiplication of probiotic microorganisms to generate new healthy products in the food industry.
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