ABSTRACT

Apes do not store food, whereas man does. The evolution of food storage resulted in cultural evolution as time was left over for other activities than collecting the daily food. Innovations in food storage made in the early time of mankind are still in use today. Drying, smoking, grilling, boiling, salting and honeying of food are functional food preservation techniques mainly based on heating and/or lowering of the water activity. Biopreservation was also used early in our history, but without the knowledge of the presence of microorganisms, which are pivotal for the process. Nevertheless, the lack of a deeper insight in the major players in biopreservation did not hinder development of many food products, like cheese, beer, wine, vinegar, bread, yogurt and a heap of different fermented vegetables, cereals, meats and fi shes. Such food products are palatable, mostly safe, have increased digestibility, vary in structure, smell and taste, and often present increased levels of vitamins in addition to that they preserve longer than the starting raw materials. The pioneering work by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Luis Pasteur and many others has shown the critical role of fungi, molds, yeasts, lactic acid and other bacteria in biopreservation. In this review, the focus is on biopreservation by lactic acid bacteria and which molecules and mechanisms are responsible for the preservation effect.