The production of stirred yogurt fortified with prebiotic xylooligosaccharide, probiotic and synbiotic microcapsules

Abstract

Xylooligosaccharides are considered safe emergent food ingredients with various promising biological activities. Herein, xylooligosaccharides were produced through enzymatic hydrolysis of beech wood xylan and their prebiotic activity was evaluated. The reported results indicated that the produced xylooligosaccharides own confident influence for stimulating the growth of different useful bacterial strains with a significant resistance to simulated intestinal juice digestion but decomposed by more than 50% in simulated gastric juice. Therefore, encapsulation of the produced xylooligosaccharides was assessed to enhance its gastric-digestion resistance. The results indicated that the encapsulation matrix composed of sodium alginate and whey protein concentrate led to an entrapment efficiency of 85.26% for xylooligosaccharides with 100% protective efficiency in simulated gastric juice. Moreover, the incorporation of the produced xylooligosaccharides in the preparation of synbiotic microcapsules including the probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilus was evaluated. The results indicated that the entrapment efficiency for XOS in the prepared synbiotic microcapsule was 93.89%. Finally, the applicability of the produced xylooligosaccharides in the manufacture of stirred yogurt fortified with the probiotic Lactobacillus acidophilus was evaluated. Fortification with the produced xylooligosaccharides maintained the viability of the probiotic strain along the storage period with significant viability propagation (10.45 log cfu/mL after 20 days storage period) by the use of synbiotic microcapsules.