Probiotic Ice Cream Formulations Investigated

CAMPOBASSO, ItalyInterest in probiotic-enhanced foods continues to grow, expanding into products beyond yogurt and other fermented dairy foods, such as ice cream. As the applications widen, research that determines the optimum formulation is valuable to product developers.

Probiotics are live microorganisms that perform the same functions as beneficial microorganisms naturally found in the human gut and have been investigated for digestive and immune-health benefits. However, they need to remain viable to be of use, and products that contain them must retain acceptable organoleptic properties. To get a better understanding of probiotics in ice cream, Italian researchers from DISTAAM Università del Molise investigated the properties of several different ice cream formulations. They looked at three types of ice cream: probiotic ice cream with probiotic microorganisms such as Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus rhamnosus; prebiotic ice cream that contained inulin, a prebiotic ingredient that supports probiotic growth; and synbiotic ice cream produced by adding a combination of probiotic microorganisms and prebiotics.

They measured the ice creams microbial counts, pH, acidity, and physical and functional properties to see the effect of the added ingredients. They found that the experimental ice creams preserved the probiotic bacteria and had counts of viable lactic acid bacteria after frozen storage that met the minimum required to achieve probiotic effects. The results showed that, most of the ice creams had good nutritional and sensory properties, especially the samples formulated with the probiotic culture L. casei and 2.5% inulin.