POTENTIAL OF CEREALS AND PSEUDOCEREALS FOR LACTIC ACID FERMENTATIONS

Cereals and pseudocereals play a significant role in human nutrition. They are source of specific carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, fibre and wide spectrum of vitamins and minerals. Moreover, pseudocereals have a higher content of essential amino acids, e.g. lysine and tryptophan. Cereals and pseudocereals may also contain some antinutrition factors, such as phytic acid, polyphenols, trypsin inhibitors and inhibitors of α-amylase. These are responsible for reducing of protein and carbohydrate digestibility and decreasing accessibility of minerals due to complex formation. This review assesses the applications of cereals and pseudocereals in fermentation technology including the effects of lactic acid bacteria on nutrition, sensory quality and shelf-life. This work is focusing also on fermentation process of cereal matrice leading in degradation of antinutritional factors increase of nutritional value and availability of minerals, proteins and carbohydrates. Lactic acid bacteria produce many aromatic compounds that are beneficial to organoleptic atributes of the products. However, a few questions have been not answered in experiments, yet. For eample, is there any space for evaluation of their suitability to act as carriers of probiotics? Could such the attempts lead in development some special formulae suitable for consumers with food allergies or deficiencies? doi:10.5219/127