Technological Advancement of Functional Fermented Dairy Beverages

Abstract Today foods are not only satisfying hunger and nutrition, but are also preventing nutrition-related diseases for improving the physical and mental well-being of the consumers. To accept the consumers demand for improving overall health and reducing risk of specific diseases, the concept of functional foods came into being, which provide specific health benefits beyond their traditional nutritional values. Fermented milks have various health benefits because of very healthy bacteria being prevalent in them termed as “probiotics.” There are several health benefits of using probiotic-containing foods such as: antimicrobial and antimutagenic activities, anticarcinogenic properties, antihypertensive attributes, and beneficial effects on mineral metabolism, especially regarding bone stability, attenuation of symptoms of bowel disease and Crohn syndrome, reduction of food allergies, and reducing in level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Few Lactobacillus strains have also shown suppression of pathogenic microorganisms such as Salmonella enteritidis , Escherichia coli , Shigella sonnei , and Serratia marcescens . During fermentation, proteolysis of milk proteins occurs that produces physiological bioactive peptides for conferring immunostimulatory, opioid, or angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitory activity. Commercially, many dairy beverages incorporated with bioactive agents (ω − 3 fatty acids, α-linoleic acid, docosahexanoic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, etc.) are available in the market. Calpis, b-Active, and Nutrifit are the popular functional fermented dairy beverages with specific health claims.