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New Spanish-language e-book about fermented foods now available for download

/in News, Consumer Blog /by KC

By Dr. Gabriel Vinderola, PhD,  Associate Professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering from the National University of Litoral and Principal Researcher from CONICET at Dairy Products Institute (CONICET-UNL), Santa Fe, Argentina

Fermented foods and beverages such as yogurt, wine, beer, kefir, kombucha, kimchi, and miso are created with the help of microbes. After more than 10,000 years of practice around the globe, fermentation has finally caught massive attention from a general public interested in knowing more about the fascinating, invisible world of microbes. In essence, the act of fermentation places food in a unique place between raw and cooked. The flavours, tastes, textures and potential health benefits of fermented foods, made possible through the presence of viable or non-viable microbes and their metabolites, are achieved through this set of ancestral food processing techniques. Today’s science allows us to see the functions of fermentation microbes that can make certain nutrients more bioavailable in foods. Fermentation can also reduce certain anti-nutrients and generate a large number of potentially beneficial microorganisms.

To help people learn about fermented foods, I was pleased to collaborate on an e-book with Ricardo Weill, an Argentinian dairy industry expert who first introduced Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG in Argentinian fermented milks in the 1990s, and Alejandro Ferrari, a biologist and scientific communications expert. The book is titled ‘Fermented Foods: microbiology, nutrition, health and culture’, and is currently available only in Spanish.

The book aimed to reach the general public, with scientific concepts but in easy-to-follow language for people with little or no previous knowledge of microbiology, nutrition or food technology. It tells the stories of many types of fermented foods around the world and adds a scientific perspective on their health benefits. The book brings together information from 38 authors from Argentina, Colombia, Japan, Spain and Finland, including ISAPP President Prof. Seppo Salminen, and Martin Russo, a professional chef in Argentina who specializes in fermentation. The book includes the following sections:

Fermentation: An anthropological view

Variety of fermented foods in Japan and other East Asian countries, and the microorganisms involved in their fermentation

Introduction to the intestinal microbiota: its role in health and the disease

Consumption of probiotic fermented milk and its impact on the immune system

Fermented milks, yogurts and probiotics

Kefir and artisanal fermented foods

Fermented meat sausages: Contribution of lactic bacteria in global quality

Lactic fermentation of cereals and Andean ancestral grains

Fermented vegetables and legumes

Fermentation of fruit drinks and drinks

Yeasts in beer and baked goods

Role of fermented foods in diet

Role of lactic acid in the beneficial effects of fermented foods

Microbiological safety of fermented foods

Fermented foods and chronic non-communicable diseases: A narrative review of the literature

Fermentation and gastronomy: A cook among scientists, a scientist among cooks

This e-book initiative started in October 2019, when a symposium about fermented food was organized by the Danone Institute of the Southern Cone (DISC).

The Danone Institute of the Southern Cone (DISC) was founded in 2008, and it is the local chapter for Argentina, Chile and Uruguay of the Danone Institute International network, which gathers 14 Danone Institutes (13 local Institutes and 1 International) in 15 countries. All Danone Institutes are non-profit organizations, dedicated to non-commercial activities and promotion of science.

Since its foundation, the DISC has collaborated with more than 200 experts taking part in different projects, and has served as a collaborative meeting place to reflect with their peers—all of them remarkable scientists coming from different and complementary specialties, focusing on key aspects of public health linked to food.

See the link to our book here:

Fermented Food: Microbiology, Nutrition, Health & Culture. (2020)

See the ISAPP press release about this book in English and en español.

Some previously-produced nutrition books that are freely available in Spanish on the DISC website are:

  • Impact of Growth and Early Development on the Population’s Health and Wellbeing. Perspectives and Reflections from the Southern Cone. (2009)
  • Healthy Growth. Between Malnutrition and Obesity in the Southern Cone. (2011)
  • The Role of Calcium and Vitamin D in Bone Health and Beyond. Perspective from the Southern Cone. (2013)
  • Methodologies Employed in Food Evaluation. An Ibero-American Vision. (2015)
  • Their Impact in Nutrition and Health. A Vision from the Southern Cone. (2018)

Highlighting the importance of lactic acid bacteria: An interview with Prof. Seppo Salminen

/in Consumer Blog, ISAPP Science Blog /by KC

By Kristina Campbell, M.Sc., science & medical writer

 

In a 2009 book called What on Earth Evolved?, British author Christopher Lloyd takes on the task of ranking the top 100 species that have influenced the planet throughout its evolutionary history.

What comes in at number 5, just slightly more influential than Homo sapiens? Lactobacilli, a diverse group of lactic-acid-producing bacteria.

The influential status of these bacteria on a global scale comes as no surprise to Prof. Seppo Salminen, ISAPP president and Professor at University of Turku (Finland), who has spent most of his career studying these microbes. He is the co-editor of the best-selling textbook Lactic Acid Bacteria: Microbiological and Functional Aspects, the fifth edition of which was released earlier this year. Salminen says the scientific community has come a long way in its understanding of lactic acid bacteria (LAB)—and in particular, lactobacilli.

Seppo Salminen at ISAPP annual meeting 2019

“If you think about the history of humankind, earlier on, more than 60% of the food supply was fermented,” explains Salminen. “On a daily basis, humans would have consumed many, many lactic acid bacteria.”

Yet 30 years ago when Salminen and his colleagues published the first edition of the textbook on lactic acid bacteria, they were working against perceptions that bacteria were universally harmful. The science on using live microorganisms to achieve health benefits was still emerging.

“Most people in food technology, they had learned how to kill bacteria but not how to keep them alive,” he explains. “They didn’t yet know how to add them to different formulations in foods and what sort of carrier they need. At that time, the safety and efficacy of probiotics was not well understood.”

Around ten years later, scientists came together to develop a definition of probiotics on behalf of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the WHO (FAO/WHO)—in a report that formed the basis of ISAPP Consensus meeting and today’s international consensus definition: “live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host”.

With probiotics having been more precisely defined, the following years were a time of rapid scientific progress in the field. Lactobacilli became the stars of the show, as research emerged on the benefits of various strains and combinations of strains in food science and medicine.

Fast forward to today, when rapidly expanding gut microbiome research adds another dimension to what we know about these bacteria. While lactic acid bacteria are still primarily of interest for the health benefits they impart, scientists can now also study their interactions with other microorganisms in the intestinal microbiome. In some cases, this kind of research may help uncover new mechanisms of action.

After everything Salminen and his textbook co-editors (Vinderola, Ouwehand, and von Wright) have learned about lactic acid bacteria over the past few decades, Salminen says there are two main reasons for the perennial importance of the bugs. “One is their importance in food fermentation, extending the shelf life of foods, making a kind of food processing or ‘agricultural processing’ possible. To make sauerkraut shelf-stable for weeks, or to make yogurt or cheese.”

The second reason, he says, relates to their benefits for the host. “Lactic acid bacteria, especially lactobacilli, reinforce intestinal integrity. So they protect us against pathogens; and sometimes against toxins and heavy metals by binding them away.”

He continues, “The more we know, the more we understand that LAB are needed. There are very specific strains that are helpful in different conditions for animal feeds or for clinical nutrition for infants, for example.” He says the knowledge is expanding at such a rapid pace that it may only be a few more years before the textbook he co-edited will need another edition.

Salminen is currently one of the world’s most cited probiotic researchers, and has diverse ongoing research projects related to digestive health, eczema, early life, and nutrition economics—but lactic acid bacteria are the thread that weaves everything together.

“I’m proud to be working on the fifth most important factor in human evolution,” he says.