Dietary fiber and prebiotics

Abstract

Dietary fiber and prebiotics exert a great impact on health-promoting food for mankind. Under this aspect a general overview is given about the bioavailability of carbohydrates and their influence on dietary fiber intake and about the developing of the prebiotic concept and specific functional foods. Moreover, the occurrence and chemical composition of native dietary fiber such as resistant starch, pectin, hemicelluloses, AY-glucan, and fructan in context to their properties in particular the prebiotic potential for human health will be discussed. Important industrially produced bioactive carbohydrates from plant and seaweed sources with high prebiotic efficacy and increasing economic interest such as fructan particularly inulin and fructooligosaccharides (FOS), heteropolysaccharides, xylooligosaccharides (XOS), and isomaltooligosaccharides (IMO) will be presented. Additionally enzymatic processing of prebiotic-active oligosaccharides such as FOS, galactooligosaccharides (GOS), or nondigestible disaccharides such as isomaltulose and trehalulose derived from sucrose and lactose will be demonstrated and discussed.