Prebiotic traits
The main prebiotic in the Jerusalem artichoke is inulin. Human digestive enzymes not able to break inulin, but inulin helps the bacteria live in our intestine to produce short chain fatty acids (SCFA), which in turn are very beneficial for the human’s health.
High diversity and Lactobacillales or LAB bacteria’s high concentration/multiplicity
The beneficial features of Lactic acid bacteria are being described increasingly. Fermented products such as sauerkraut and pickles have been made for thousands of years, lactic acid bacteria are the principal organisms involved in this fermentation process and now we know that very healthy also. LAB bacteria convert sugars mostly into lactic acid. They grow readily and lower the pH rapidly to a point where competing organisms are no longer able to grow.
RBM has developed alternative ways to increase the abundance of bacteria, which also preserves diversity. We have combined the benefits of organic food production with technologies that increace the diversity and abundance of beneficial bacteria.
RBM has been analysing different kinds of vegetables and has discovered that in some vegetables there are diverse bacterial communities, which have a great potential influencing microbal communities in human’s intestine.
Initially we are taking advantage of the special properties of the Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus).
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) is a wide group of microbes having in common the ability to produce lactic acid. Although the word “lactic” might be associated with milk, it has to be noted that most of the lactic acid bacteria in our food originate from fermented vegetables. This is the direction also for RootBioMe technologies – rich LAB communities that do not originate from milk.
Vegetables as a probiotical candidates
Based on our test results, we can say that the number and diversity (number of different bacteria species) of bacteria is bigger in the vegetables’ peel (normal fresh root has 10 /g bacteria, peel has 10 /g) compared to the inside.
Bacteria’s diversity depends on the plants’ species, preservation and agrotechnique.
One group of probiotics of plant origin is lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The number of these bacteria increases considerably during fermentation. During fermentation the number of lactic acid bacteria increases up to 10 /per gram of plant tissue.
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