Molecular techniques reveal more secrets of fermented foods

Abstract

Fermented foods were likely to have been the first among all types of processed foods consumed by human beings. The role that fermented food plays is not only related to the development of civilizations and cultural relationships between countries but also related to the nutritional importance of its population. Of course, the early manufacturers of fermented foods didn’t take into account the advantages of modern sciences, because enzymes and microorganisms were discovered just 150-200 years ago. For that reason, we can conclude why the ancient fermentation techniques were known to philosophers and alchemists, but not to biologists. It demonstrated that the fermentation mechanisms involved many secrets still undiscovered. Recently, applications of molecular techniques for analyzing and study the fermented foods have been explored. In this review, we provide answers with a critical vision to many questions for understanding the role of molecular techniques to discover the secrets of fermented foods such as how to evaluate the traditional fermented foods? Why using molecular techniques to study the fermented foods not else? Is the future will carry to us a boom in molecular technologies contribute to the detection of more secrets of the fermented food?

Keywords:

• Fermented foods
• positive reflections
• adverse effects
• fermenting microflora
• microbial characterizing approaches
• molecular techniques applications

Authors Contributions Statement

Dr. Aly Farag El Sheikha designed and wrote the manuscript. Dr. Dian-Ming Hu revised the manuscript.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31460009, 31500021) and Key Research and Development Program of Jiangxi Province (20161BBF60078).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).