CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

In the last two decades, cheeses have been targeted as carriers for probiotic bacteria in many countries around the world due to the consumer¡¯s demand for diversification of the market of functional foods. Although commercialy one step behind fermented milks, cheeses rapidly became the most successful vehicle for probiotic bacteria due to certain properties of cheese matrix that offers specific advantages compared to fermented milks, in which the of loss of cell viability occurs in a strain- and product-dependant manner. Most reports indicate that cheeses are indeed an adequate vehicle for probiotics, particularly in those no cooking at too high temperatures occurs during cheese manufacture, such as cooked-curd hard cheeses. Even when the suitability of cheese for maintaining a high number of viable cells for months has been demonstrated, other issues remain to be studied, particularly the loss of viable cells during drainage and the impact of probiotics in secondary lypolysis and organoleptic characteristics of the product, mainly if ripening and storage occur at temperatures ¡Ã 8-10¨¬C. Additionally, just the addition of probiotics to a cheese is not enough for the product to be regarded as a probiotic cheese; animal and human studies are mandatory in order to demonstrate that cheeses in fact serve as a functional carrier for probiotics.

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