Background: With the increase in cases of intolerance and allergies to milk protein, new food possibilities have been studied as an alternative to dairy drinks in order to meet the needs of this population, such as non-dairy synbiotic drinks.
Objective: The aim of this study was to carry out an integrative literature review on the main types of non-dairy synbiotic beverages in order to investigate the probiotics and prebiotics added to them. Besides, we also looked into the characteristics of the substrates and fermentation conditions (temperature, time, and pH) to assess the influences on bacterial viability, consumer acceptance, conservation, and antimicrobial action.
Methods: We conducted an integrative review of articles published in Pubmed, Web of Science, Scielo, Scopus, and Capes journals in the last five years, using the following terms: symbiotic drink, symbiotic beverage, synbiotic drink, synbiotic beverage, bebida simbiótica, not kombucha, which resulted in the inclusion of 28 articles.
Results: As expected, the main probiotics were lactobacillus and bifidobacterium, while the prebiotics were inulin and fructooligosaccharide. It is noteworthy that all analyzed beverages were, in fact, probiotics since they had values above the minimum viability of 6 log CFU/mL; consequently, they can bring benefits to consumers.
Conclusion: In addition to being rich sources of nutrients, fruits and vegetables also enable the development of synbiotic drinks supplied from their substrates, providing an alternative for people who are lactose intolerant.
Keywords: Synbiotics; beverages; drink; functional; microbiology; non-dairy.
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