​Health-promoting Effects of Developed Probiotic Orange Beverage: An in vitro Study

Abstract

Background: Probiotic food has evolved as the new trend among the health fanatics because of their proven benefits in preventing many diseases. With change in time the way of consuming probiotics has also changed. Unlike past dairy is not the only option for commercial probiotic production, recently fruit juices have become the popular choice for it. So the current study aimed to assess the feasibility of orange juice (Citrus reticulate) as a potential probiotic carrier for the production of probiotic orange juice with lactic acid bacteria. Methods: Three test samples (TS) were developed with different combination of lactic acid probiotic bacteria viz. test sample 1 (TS1) (L. bulgaricus and L. casei), TS2 (L. bulgaricus, L. casei and L. gasseri) and TS3 (L. bulgaricus, L. casei, L. gasseri and L. fermentum). The orange juice was pasteurized for 2 min at 90°C and was inoculated at a rate of 10% inoculum. All the test samples were fermented for 4 hrs at 37°C and the physicochemical and nutritional characteristics were evaluated along with their in vitro hypocholesterolemic and in vitro hypoglycemic efficacies. Result: The probiotic orange test samples did not show inferior properties than the control in terms of physicochemical and nutritional properties. The bacterial count was decreased with time but remained above standard limit (107cfu/100ml) until 28th day of refrigerated storage. All the test samples showed promising antioxidant activity, in vitro hypocholesterolemic activity and in vitro hypoglycemic activities. Hence orange juice could be used as a suitable probiotic carrier for production of novel probiotic beverages.