Fermentation of fruit and vegetable juices with probiotics is a novel nutritional approach with potential health benefits. Lactic acid fermentation-based biotransformation results in changes in the profile and nature of bioactive compounds and improves the organoleptic properties, shelf life and bioavailability of vitamins and minerals in the fermented juices. This process has been shown to enrich the phenolic profile and bioactivity components of the juices, resulting in a new type of functional food with improved health benefits. Fruits and vegetables are the ideal substrate for microbial growth, and fruit and vegetable juice will produce rich nutrients and a variety of functional activities after fermentation, so that the high-quality utilization of fruits and vegetables is realized, and the future fermented fruit and vegetable juice products have a wide application market. This paper explores the typical fermentation methods for fruit and vegetable juices, investigates the bioactive components, functional activities, and the influence of fermentation on enhancing the quality of fruit and vegetable juices. The insights derived from this study carry significant implications for guiding the development of fermented fruit and vegetable juice industry.
Fermentation technology has a long history and low-temperature fermentation has now become the focus of research. This paper reviews the mechanism and application of low-temperature fermentation and the optimization of relevant strains. Low-temperature fermentation leads to a differential expression of growth in metabolism genes (PSD1, OPI3, ERG3, LCB3 and NTH1). Low-temperature fermentation can be applied to foods and has various advantages, such as increasing changes in volatile flavor compounds and other corresponding metabolic substances of the strain, and inhibited growth of spurious bacteria. The focus of low-temperature fermentation in the long run lies in strain optimization, which is to protect and optimize the strains through a variety of methods. Low-temperature fermentation can greatly improve product quality. At present, the most effective methods to promote low-temperature fermentation are gene knockout and probiotic microencapsulation.
Pickles are a type of traditional fermented vegetables in China. To ascertain the effect of different lactic acid bacteria on pickles, the chemical composition characteristics, flavor substances, and bacterial diversity of the pickles fermented by natural bacteria, Lactobacillus plantarum R5, Lactobacillus pentosus R8, and L. plantarum R5 plus L. pentosus R8 were investigated in this study. The results showed that Lactobacillus enhanced the decrease in pH, increase in total acid content, degradation of nitrite, and production of organic acid (lactic acid and malic acid) of fermented pickles. A total of 80 flavors were detected in the pickles fermented for 14 days, and esters in pickles fermented by Lactobacillus were more plentiful. Firmicutes emerged as the predominant microbial phyla. Amongst these, the commonly encountered microorganisms were Lactobacillus, unclassified Enterobacteriaceae, Pantoea, and Weissella. The multivariate statistical analysis further showed that Lactobacillus had a strong negative correlation with pH and a strong positive correlation with malic acid and lactic acid, and the microorganisms in pickles could acclimate to the changing fermentation environment. The insights gained from this study may be of assistance to us in obtaining new insights into the microbiota succession and chemical compounds involved in the pickles fermented by Lactobacillus.