Trends in dairy and non-dairy probiotic products - a review.

Health awareness has grown to a greater extent
among consumers and they are looking for healthy probiotic
counterparts. Keeping in this view, the present review focuses
recent developments in dairy and non-dairy probiotic products.
All over the world, dairy probiotics are being commercialized
in many different forms. However, the allergy
and lactose intolerance are the major set-backs to dairy
probiotics. Whereas, flavor and refreshing nature are the
major advantages of non-dairy drinks, especially fruit
juices. Phenotypic and genotypic similarities between dairy
and non-dairy probiotics along with the matrix dependency
of cell viability and cell functionality are reviewed. The
heterogeneous food matrices of non-dairy food carriers are
the major constraints for the survival of the probiotics,
while the probiotic strains from non-dairy sources are satisfactory.
Technological and functional properties, besides
the viability of the probiotics used in fermented products
of non-dairy origin are extremely important to get a competitive
advantage in the world market. The functional
attributes of dairy and non-dairy probiotic products are
further enhanced by adding prebiotics such as galacto-oligosaccharide,
fructo-oligosaccharide and inulin.