Probiotics and Prebiotics in Traditional Food

Abstract

Anna Gramza-Michałowska 2.1 Introduction For centuries, probiotics and prebiotics have been used in foods for their technological aspects and beneficial health effect on human organism. Functional food is defi ned as food, or food ingredient, with positive effects on host health and/or well-being beyond its nutritive value (Huggett and Verschuren 1996). As the part of functional food, both probiotics and prebiotics should be well identifi ed, characterized, and targeted on different populations. Since the colon bacteria are proved to be benefi cial for human health it is very important to use the plant-derived prebiotics and probiot-ics in terms of colonic microfl ora composition manipulations. Special focus will be given to defi nitions, health aspects, and possible directions in food industry. 2.2 Human Colon Human colon undertakes many of the physiological activities and is one of the body's most metabolically active organs. The human embryo has sterile gut, which is being colonized with aging by the indigenous bacteria (Mitsuoka 1990). During life, human gut is settled with bacteria responsible for undigested food fermenta-tion. Microorganisms exist in human alimentary tract with population characteristic for the particular parts of the gut. Typical colonic transit is 48–70 h for the adults, which allows to establish the bacterial community in large intestine (Macfarlane and Gibson 1994). The colon pH and relatively low absorptive state encourage