ABSTRACT
Probiotic encapsulation favors the cells in various aspects such as increasing their resistance to bacteriophage infection, chemical poisons, and genetic mutation, improved productivity in metabolite production and a denser biomass production (Mortazavian et al. 2007). Furthermore, the main factor is increased cell tolerance against the harsh environment of fermented and other acidic products, resulting in increased shelf-life (Mortazavian and Sohrabvandi 2006, Mortazavian et al. 2006a, 2006b, Mortazavian et al. 2007). It is recommended that each person should consume about 1 x 109 probiotic viable cells per day (approximately 100 g/day of probiotic products with 107 cfu (colony forming units)/g viability) (Kurmann and Robinson 1991, Shah 2000, Lourens-Hattingh and Viljoen 2001, Shah et al. 2011, Hickey 2005, Parracho et al. 2007). But it is not applicable in practice because of the susceptibility of probiotics to environmental stresses and their poor viability during fermentation and storage time (Shah 2000, Korbekandi et al. 2011). In general, a large number of internal and external parameters have signifi cant eff ects on probiotics’ viability, especially in fermented products. The most important are medium pH and acidity, presence of
1 Department of Food Science and Technology, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences, Food Science and Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 19395-4741, Tehran, Iran.
