ABSTRACT
Probiotics, in the form of dairy foods with lactic acid bacteria, have been consumed for centuries by humans. Over the last decade there has been increased interest in bacterial food supplements, what we now call probiotics. The term ‘probiotic’ was first used for growth-promoting animal feeds in the 1970s. Fuller (1989) has now defined the term ‘probiotic’ as: ‘a live microbial feed supplement which beneficially affects the host animal by improving its microbial balance’.
