Prebiotic foods

Two types of functional food are not designed to provide us with dietary components, but to provide food for the microbes that inhabit our gut. These are the so-called probiotic and prebiotic foods. The former are meant to introduce better bacteria into our intestines, while the latter feed the bacteria that are already there in the hope of boosting more of the good bacteria and thereby helping them crowd out the bad bacteria. Various health claims have been made for these foods. 

In addition to exerting a beneficial effect on host health, prebiotics can be incorporated into foods as they possess various physiochemical properties. Pla)me and Crittenden [48] identified desirable attributes for these oligosaccharides (O Table 6). Currently the Japanese are the market leaders as regards prebiotic food stuffs, but America and Europe are slowly catching up. 

Rastall RA (2006) Galactooligosaccharides as prebiotic food ingredients. In Gibson GR, Rastall RA (eds) Prebiotics Development and Application. Wiley, Chichester, West Sussex,... 

Rodriguez-Huezo, M.E., Duran-Lugo, R., Prado-Barragan, L.A. et al. 2007. Pre-selection of protective colloids for enhanced viability of Bifidobacterium bifidum following spray-drying and storage, and evaluation of aguamiel as thermoprotective prebiotic. Food Res. Int. 40 1299-1306. 

Tuohy KM, Duncan T, Brown DT, Klinder A, Costabile A. Shaping the human microbiome with prebiotic foods—current perspectives for continued development. Pood Sci Technol Bull. 2010 7 49-64. 

Shaping the Human Microbiome with Prebiotic Foods — Current Perspectives for Continued Development ... 

This is an update of "Shaping the human microbiome with prebiotic foods — current perspectives for continued development." Food Science and Technology Bulletin 2010 7(4) 49—64. Avedlable from http //dx.doi.org/10.1616/1476-2137.15989 handle http //hdl.handle. net/10449/19776. Re-published with the permission of Internationed Food Information Service (IFIS Publishing). 

SHAPING THE HUMAN MICROBIOME WITH PREBIOTIC FOODS... 

SHAPING THE HUMAN MICROBIOME WITH PREBIOTIC FOODS TABLE 5.2 Human Dietary Interventions with Prebotic Functional Foods ... 

ROBERFROID M B (2000) Prebiotics and probiotics are they functional foods dm J Clin Nutr 11 1682S-90S. 

The term prebiotic was introduced by Gibson and Roberfroid (1995) who defined prebiotics as a non-digestible food ingredient that beneficially affects the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon . 

HV139 Fukuda M., O. Kanauchi, Y. Araki, et al. Prebiotic treatment of experimen-tal colitis with germinated barley food-stuff a comparison with probiotic or antibiotic treatment. Int J Mol Med 2002 9(1) 65-70. 

These carbohydrates may be added to all kinds of foods, such as cereals, cakes, biscuits, and health drinks. They can be extracted from things like chicory root or produced from sugar by the action of specific enzymes. A little FOS is also to be found in bananas, leeks, and wheat, and the other prebiotics also occur naturally, but no fruit or vegetable by itself can supply the 5 g of oligosaccharides needed daily to boost the good bacteria. Indeed the normal person s diet contains only about 2 g of these carbohydrates. 

Both the tubers and the aerial parts of Jerusalem artichoke are fed to animals. This can be in the form of forage, silage, food pellets, or prebiotic feed supplements. The leaves of Jerusalem artichoke, in particular, are protein-rich and nutritionally comparable to better known forage crops. 

The flour made from Jerusalem artichoke tubers is a low-calorie, fat-free source of energy and fiber, which is rich in nutrients, including calcium, potassium, and iron. For the health food market, Jerusalem artichoke flour is often included in products that also contain live bacteria, especially bifidobacteria. The bacteria (probiotic) and food substrate (prebiotic) act to maintain a healthy balance of microflora in the colon (see below). 

Saavedra, J.M., Tschernia, A., Moore, N., Abi-Hanna, A., Coletta, F., Emenhiser, C., and Yolken, R., Gastrointestinal function in infants consuming a weaning food supplemented with oligofructose — a prebiotic, J. Pediatr. Gastroenterol. Nutr., 29, A95, 1999. 

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