Probiotics
Also known as Prebiotics, Probiotic cultures, Functional cultures
Live beneficial cultures added to a fermented product in the hope of a health benefit, together with the prebiotic substances that feed them.
A probiotic is a living culture eaten in the hope of a health benefit, usually a strain of lactic acid bacteria. Because dry fermented sausages are already made with live cultures and are not cooked afterwards, they have been explored as a carrier for probiotic strains, which can survive to the plate in a way they cannot in a cooked product.
Prebiotics are the other half of the idea: non-digestible fibres such as inulin that are not alive themselves but feed beneficial bacteria. In meat products they double as functional ingredients that can also help texture and support fat reduction.
The practical catch is that a probiotic strain has to do two jobs at once, deliver its health effect and behave as a reliable sausage culture that ferments cleanly and survives the drying, and the two do not always come in one organism. This keeps probiotic charcuterie a specialist pursuit rather than standard practice.
Temple element. Pillar, Microbial Control