Oligosaccharides nutritionally important

Members of the raffinose family of oligosaccharides are present in appreciable concentrations in the nutritionally important food-legumes these are known to cause flatulence in man and other animals. Blair and coworkers144" quantitated the production of flatus in man,... 

Levans are synthesized in approximately all bacterial versions of fructan production, as well as being possible to produce by fracturing soybean mucilage. Levan, fructose-composed biopolymer of bacterial origin, has potential in biotechnology due to its prebiotic and immunostimulatory properties. It was suggested that the combination of levan and nutritionally important microelements in the form of NPs serves as a first step towards a novel 2 in 1 approach for food supplements to provide safe and efficient delivery of microelements for humans and support beneficial gut microbiota with nutritional oligosaccharides [68],... 

Table 1 Most Important Oligosaccharides (OS) of Nonmilk Origin Already Used as Prebiotics in Human Nutrition...

Carbohydrates are ubiquitous. Every organism contains some carbohydrate. Carbohydrates can range from a simple monosaccharide to a large complex polysaccharide. Polysaccharides in combination with proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids play an important role in many plant and animal metabolic systems. Carbohydrates have many roles in food systems, where they function to provide flavor, structure, and texture to food and nutritional benefits to the consumer. This chapter attempts to address the role of common plant monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides as ingredients in food systems by discussing their occurrence in plants, commercial processing, functionality, food uses, and healthful properties. 

Oligosaccharides consist of three or four monosaccharide units (trisaccharides and tetrasaccharides), and occasionally more, linked by glycoside bonds. Nutritionally, they are not particularly important, and indeed they are generally not digested, although they may be fermented by intestinal bacteria and make a significant contribution to the production of intestinal gas. 

This chapter on saccharides is divided into two main parts. The first part describes major monosaccharides, and their functional derivatives, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. Their structure and nomenclature, occurrence in major food commodities, properties and importance in human physiology and nutrition, recommended intake and use in food technology are all described. The second part is devoted to reactions of saccharides that lead to the formation of products that influence odour, taste and colour of foods, and to reactions taking place during storage and thermal processing of food raw materials and foods. 

Neuraminic acid has received much attention recently. In its acetylated form, it is a component of membrane-forming glycolipids (cf. Chapt. XI11-4) and of the bifidus factors. The latter are oligosaccharides of human milk, important for the nutrition of infants. 

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