Fermentation
Fermentation: food, produced using micro-organisms.
What is fermentation ?
In a strict approach fermentation is the anaerobic metabolism. Fermentations of food products however are regarded in a broad context and are described as desired changes in food products induced by living or dead micro-organisms and their enzymes.
Reasons to ferment food products are:
improved shelf-life of a product
improved nutritional value and digestibility
removal of anti nutritional factors from some plant derived base materials.
Apart from that, fermentation is an energy extensive processing method: the process itself does not require a lot of energy, and the resulting food product usually has shorter cooking times when preparing the meal.
Some famous examples of fermented food products are bread, beer and wine. These products are obtained by alcoholic fermentation by yeasts. Yogurt, buttermilk, cheese, sauerkraut, olives and salami are mostly obtained by lactic acid fermentation by lactobacillae. Sour bread and pumpernickel are obtained by mixed alcoholic and lactic acid fermentations by yeast and lactobacillae. Soy bean sauce is obtained from a process in which fungi, yeasts and lactobacilli play a role.
All in all, the most important types of fermentation are:
Alcoholic fermentation
Lactobacillic fermentation
Acetic acid fermentation
Fungal fermentations |
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