Evolution of Probiotic Usage in the Global Food Industry: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract: Food fermentation is one of the oldest food preservation and processing methods that uses live microorganisms and dates back thousands of years in human civilization. From those days, human society has used them without knowing the true value of these live microorganisms. But later, they understood the beneficial health effects of some organisms used in fermentation. Later they were named probiotics. With the advancement of science, the taxonomic and morphological details of probiotic bacteria and fungi were identified. In the early stage of human civilization, probiotics were used only for the preservation of excess food stuff, but now they have been used for many other aspects. Encapsulated probiotics and dried probiotics enhance the benefits of probiotics while reducing the major drawback of survivability in harsh conditions. Genetically engineered probiotics organisms open new avenues in the nutraceutical industry, having maximum benefits to the host. In modern medicine, probiotic functional foods have been used as nutraceuticals for multi-drug resisting organisms and as transport vectors. In the near future, Super probiotic organisms will be the new step in human civilization in terms of food and therapeutic medicine.