Probiotic foods offer many benefits to human health, causing increased interest in the development of new food products that exploit such benefits. However, traditional dairy foods are being replaced by other non-dairy foods to provide additional sources of benefits provided by bioactive molecules. Therefore, the objective of the present work was to study the production process of a probiotic fruit drink and then microencapsulate the probiotic pulp to stabilize the drink further. Passion fruit pulp (Passiflora edulis Sims f. flavicarpa Deg.) was fermented with Lactobacillus reuteri under different temperature conditions in combination with different pHs to find the best fermentation conditions. Different from dairy sources, the optimal conditions for the growth of Lactobacillus reuteri in the passion fruit pulp were found to be 30 °C at pH 3.18, where phenolic compounds could also be used as a secondary metabolic pathway. Spray-drying was performed using different conditions for microencapsulation. Process yields and Lactobacillus reuteri survival showed the dependency of droplet sizes, whereas phenolic compound retention was increased when higher amounts of gelatin were used. Therefore, the development of a new food product comprising a powdered fruit pulp rich in probiotic and phenolic compounds was possible.

The potential of paraprobiotics and postbiotics to be used as beneficial agents for human health has caused an effort by the scientific community to gather information about the bioactivity of these compounds and production methods. Understanding the evolution of scientific research in this area of study is important to understand the future perspectives and the main bottlenecks of scientific and technological development involving these compounds. In this scenario, this review work used a bibliometric analysis tool intending to improve the scientific documentation, bringing information and communicating the results to the scientific community through the quantitative analysis of the current literature, available in one of the main databases, the Web of Science, also providing recent information on the evolution and future perspectives in the field of paraprobiotic and postbiotic development. The results of this study showed that the main studies discuss the bioactivity of these compounds. Concerning the development of functional foods, there is a need for extensive research on production methods and the interaction of these compounds with food. However, it concluded that much still needs to be studied to prove the claims of bioactivity, especially when used for the development of functional foods.

The growing interest in a healthy lifestyle has contributed to disseminating perspectives on more sustainable natural resource management. This review describes promising aspects of using cacti in the food industry, addressing sustainable, nutritional, and functional aspects of the plant’s production. Our study provides an overview of the potential of cacti for the food industry to encourage the sustainable cultivation of underutilized cactus species and their commercial exploitation. The commercial production of cacti has advantages over other agricultural practices by mitigating damage to ecosystems and encouraging migration to sustainable agriculture. The application of cactus ingredients in food development has been broad, whether in producing breads, jellies, gums, dyes, probiotics, and postbiotic and paraprobiotic foods. However, in the field of probiotic foods, future research should focus on technologies applied in processing and researching interactions between probiotics and raw materials to determine the functionality and bioactivity of products.