Abstract
An innovative ovine cheese enriched with red grape pomace powder (GPP) was produced to improve the functional properties of Vastedda cheese typology. Vastedda cheese making was performed adding GPP and four selected Lactococcus lactis strains (Mise36, Mise94, Mise169 and Mise190). For each strain, 40 L of pasteurized ewe’s milk was divided into two aliquots representing control and experimental trials. Control cheese (CC) production did not contain GPP, while the experimental cheese (EC) production was enriched with 1% (w/w) GPP. GPP did not slow down starter development and acid generation. Plate counts and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR analysis confirmed the dominance of the starters in all trials. The evolution of the physicochemical parameters showed that EC productions were characterized by lower fat content, higher protein content, and higher values of secondary lipid oxidation. Sensory evaluation indicated that the cheeses produced with the strain Mise94 were those more appreciated by the judges. Thus, the last cheeses were investigated for some functional aspects: GPP enrichment significantly increased antioxidant activity and lipoperoxyl radical scavenger capacity, confirming that grape polyphenol inclusion in cheese represents an optimal strategy for the valorization of ovine cheeses as well as winemaking industry by-products.
Highlights
Nowadays, natural antioxidants extracted from plant by-products represent a useful source of active compounds to produce healthy and functional foods more and more requested by consumers [1]
Four different natural milk starter cultures (NMSCs) were developed with four strains, individually inoculated, of Lactococcus lactis (Mise36, Mise94, Mise169, and Mise190) belonging to the culture collection of the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Forest Sciences (University of Palermo, Italy). These strains were previously isolated from fermented raw ewes’ milks added with the main grape polyphenols commonly found in winery by-products and selected as technologically relevant for dairy applications [15]
The persistence of the strains added as starter cultures and their dominance over the indigenous milk lactic acid bacteria (LAB) resistant to pasteurization process was performed by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR technique as reported by Alfonzo et al [19]
Summary
Natural antioxidants extracted from plant by-products represent a useful source of active compounds to produce healthy and functional foods more and more requested by consumers [1]. In the last years, several breeders and cheese producers pushed research institutes to develop dairy functional foods in order to contribute to the rural development This issue is relevant for the Mediterranean area because the production of cheeses is important for the environmental sustainability, makes advantageous the maintenance of native breeds, allows the survival of handicraft techniques, limits the land abandonment phenomenon, and a renewed interest for high-quality, safe products can increase the employment for livestock raising and milk transformation and have an appreciable impact on the local economy. The final cheeses were subjected to the evaluation of the microbiological, physicochemical, sensory, and functional aspects
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