Fermentation of cereals: A tool to enhance bioactive compounds

Abstract

Popularity of antioxidant-rich food products are increasing day by day. Cereals being a major source of nutrients are still deficient in some basic nutritional components. So to improve their nutritional value, functional and sensory properties, interest has been shown to develop bioprocesses for the production of bioactive compounds and their applications in the field of food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Solid-state fermentation (SSF) has received greater attention as fermentation has the potential to release phenolic compounds from plant-based matrices. The potential application of fermentation process to convert the profile of phenolic compounds is mainly due to the release of bound phenolic compounds as a consequence of the degradation of the cell wall structure by microbial enzymes into unique metabolites through different bioconversion pathways.