Production of probiotic carrot juice with Lactococcus lactis

Probiotics have several advantages for human health. Since most of the probiotic foods are dairy products, they cannot be consumed by humans who are allergic to milk proteins or have severe lactose intolerance. While looking for alternative food matrices, the suitability of carrot juice as a raw material for the production of probiotic food with Lactococcus strain (L. lactis) isolated from local cheese was investigated. Pasteurization of freshly prepared carrot juice at 85°C for 5 min decreased the microbial population and enzymes are disabled (In particular peroxidase). The initial Lactococcus strain concentrations was 109 cfu/5ml of carrot juice, and were kept viable up to the end of fermentation (30 days).Tested Lactococcus lactis strain were capable of growing well on pure carrot juice without nutrient supplementation. Due to intense metabolism of the bacteria strain, carrot juice media were acidified to a pH level of less than 4.During fermentation, the amounts of sugars decreased significantly so that about 50% of which was taken after 24 hours. Degradation of carotenoids was less than 2%. In the case of phenolic compounds the reduction was minimal so that more than 80% of the total phenolic content of Carrot juices was retained in the final product.