J Dairy Sci. 2026 Apr 3:S0022-0302(26)00315-2. doi: 10.3168/jds.2025-28004. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Yogurt is a commonly consumed nutritious and healthy food and is an excellent carrier of prebiotics and probiotics. However, the survival of probiotics in the gut with the presence of gastric and intestinal juices and bile fluid is the main challenge. Hence, the yogurt formulation must be modified to resist the unhospitable environment of the gut and assist the probiotics in their survival. One strategy to overcome this limitation is the incorporation of prebiotics into probiotics containing yogurt. Prebiotics are mostly non-digestible food ingredients that assist in the survival, proliferation, and activity of beneficial microorganisms in the gut. Supplementation of yogurt with hemp seed protein concentrate (HP) and carrot powder (CP) as prebiotics may give sufficient protection to probiotics to survive in the human gut. We investigated the viability of probiotics in goat milk yogurt that was supplemented with plant-based prebiotics during 28-d storage at 4°C and in vitro simulated gastrointestinal transit. The basic mix for the yogurts had 82.85% milk, 10.68% powdered goat milk, and 6.47% sugar. Additionally, the mix was supplemented with CP (0.6%, T1), HP (2.5%, T2), and a combination of 0.6% CP and 2.5% HP (T3). A control (T0) yogurt without plant-based ingredients was also prepared. The mix was heated to 80°C for 30 min, cooled, and then inoculated with 2% of activated starter culture (YF-L812) and 2 probiotics (3% Bifidobacterium animalis BB-12 and 3% Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5; Chr Hansen). Then the mixes were incubated at 43°C until the pH reached 4.4 to 4.6. The effects of plant-based prebiotics and probiotics on physicochemical properties such as composition, pH, acidity, water-holding capacity (WHC), and microbial counts of yogurts were studied. The addition of prebiotics and probiotics did not have any negative impact on the composition, WHC, lipid oxidation, firmness, antioxidant activity, and total phenolic content of yogurts. The presence of HP in yogurts significantly increased the viability of L. acidophilus LA-5 (LA) during storage. The prebiotics in yogurts did not affect (P > 0.05) the viability of Bifidobacterium animalis BB-12 (BB-12) during storage. The HP containing treatments in the presence of 0.3% bile salts positively affected the viability of Bifidobacteria in vitro simulated transit time and their counts exceeded 6 log cfu/g, which is the minimum required number for health benefits. The counts of LA in the HP containing treatments with 0.3% bile salts was one log lower than the threshold minimum.
PMID:41937079 | DOI:10.3168/jds.2025-28004
