Abstract

Functional foods, with emphasis on probiotics, are products that, besides possessing adequate nutritional value, stimulate physiological and metabolic activities in the body. Thus, these benefits combined with greater awareness of the population in the search for food reeducation boost the consumption of this kind of food. “Creamy requeijão” is a dairy derivative that has a matrix with physicochemical characteristics suitable for its use as a potential carrier of probiotic microorganisms. Thus, this study aimed to the evaluation of probiotic “creamy requeijão” formulations containing, individually six Lactobacillus strains, as follows: L. plantarum ATCC 8014, L. acidophilus ATCC 4356, L. delbrueckii UFV H2B20, L. fermentum ATCC 9338, L. casei ATCC 7469 and L. paracasei SP11. The results revealed that during the storage of the formulations for a period of 65 days at 5 °C the cells remained viable at levels above 10 ⁸ CFU.g ^-1 , which allows to classify these formulations as functional foods. In addition, the consumption of only 1 g per day of this food would be enough to attend the requirements of Brazilian legislation regarding the consumption of food with probiotic claims.

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