Fermented vegan foods

In recent years, an increase has been reported in consumer awareness of balanced diet and health prevention. This caused the consumer interest in functional foods to increase. The major functional foods are products that contain prebiotics and probiotics. The most often eaten probiotic product is classic yogurt, however the fermented dairy and non-dairy drinks tend to be more and more important. The increase in number and types of milk-free drinks on the market is due to increasing lactose intolerance among consumers. Additionally, in the developed countries gradually rises the number of people who are switching to veganism. The search for suitable substitutes for dairy milk and dairy products has become an important direction of scientific research and implementation projects in industry. The objective of the paper is to review the reference literature presenting results of research studies and experiments on the production and qualities of non-dairy probiotic products, that could be classified into vegan foods. New probiotic food in the form of drinks, which are already on the market or are still in research phase, are made of raw materials such as: vegetables, fruits, grains (oats, buckwheat, spelt wheat, corn, quinoa, amaranth), hazelnuts, coconuts, almonds, cashew nuts, and also sesame and hemp seeds. It is a big challenge for technologists to manufacture food products for vegans, because the vegan diet is more restrictive than a vegetarian one, therefore possibilities of using many raw materials are limited.