Probiotics: A Way of Value Addition in Functional Food

An intense acceptance of functional foods due to consumer's demand, social attitudes, scientific evidence of the human health benefits of a particular ingredient coupled with commercially driven interest to add value to existing foods have projected probiotics as a new way in the current era of self-care and complementary medicine. Diverse functional properties of probiotics led their incorporation into conventional, dietary supplements and medicinal foods and must be ingested in sufficient quantities to exert health benefits but are often present at lower levels as per the label claims. Worldwide regulations related to probiotics are incoherent and adoption of assay techniques are inconsistent, therefore establishment and reinforcement of a quality assurance program to ensure “Standard of Identity” for adopting the label “Probiotic” is emerging