Abstract
Milk kefir is a traditional fermented milk product whose consumption is becoming increasingly popular. The natural starter for kefir production is kefir grain, which consists of various bacterial and yeast species. At the industrial scale, however, kefir grains are rarely used due to their slow growth, complex application, bad reproducibility and high costs. Instead, mixtures of defined lactic acid bacteria and sometimes yeasts are applied, which alter sensory and functional properties compared to natural grain-based milk kefir. In order to be able to mimic natural starter cultures for authentic kefir production, it is a prerequisite to gain deep knowledge about the nature of kefir grains, its microbial composition, morphologic structure, composition of strains on grains and the impact of environmental parameters on kefir grain characteristics. In addition, it is very important to deeply investigate the numerous multi-dimensional interactions among different species, which play important roles on the formation and the functionality of grains.
Highlights
Milk kefir is an ancient fermented milk drink that originates from the Caucasus
Kefir-based sensory and functional properties are prone to a drastic change in microbiota, the peptide/protein profile, metabolites, if defined mixed cultures are used as starter cultures instead of kefir grains [9,10]
This review aims to summarize recent studies on milk kefir with an emphasis on the microbial composition, fine structure analysis and multi-layer interactions and their roles in kefir grains
Summary
Milk kefir is an ancient fermented milk drink that originates from the Caucasus. It is widely used in human nutrition due to its health-promoting properties. For a large number of kefir-isolated strains (e.g. Lactobacillus (Lb.) kefiranofaciens) and yeasts (e.g. Kluyveromyces (Kl.) marxianus), significant probiotic (probiotics are live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host) activities have been demonstrated in both in vitro and in vivo studies [6,7]. Based on these results, kefir is considered a “natural probiotic drink”, which underlines its uniqueness among other fermented dairy products [8]. It further highlights research opportunities and important issues for future studies in connection to the functionality of natural microbial kefir consortia and their integrity
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