Production of vegan cheese-like products with different herbal beverages and determination of in vitro post-digestive antioxidant activity and probiotic bacteria bioavailability of products

The aim of our study is to produce a cheese-like probiotic vegan product by fermenting soy and almond drinks, which are coagulated with enzyme extracted from kiwi, with TRISH® BY-01 DA (Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Bifidobacterium bifidum) vegetable starter culture. It is enriched in terms of natural antioxidant and phenolic substances by adding 1% chia seeds into 3 different vegan cheese-like products produced from soy drink (100%), almond drink (100%) and soy-almond (50% -50%). During the 1st, 15th, 30th and 45th days of storage, physicochemical, microbiological and sensory analysis was performed and the results were evaluated statistically. On the first and last days of storage, before and after in vitro digestion modeling, the bioavailability of total phenolic substance, total antioxidant substance and probiotic bacteria was determined and the results were evaluated statistically. The differences between the physicochemical properties of vegan cheese-like products produced were found to be significant (p <0.05). The pH values and lactic acid amounts of vegan cheese-like products have progressed in harmony with each other during storage. A significant difference was found in L*, a*, b* values of vegan cheese-like products on different storage days and between products (p <0.05). While there was a significant difference in total antioxidant substance values (p <0.05), the difference between total phenolic substance values was not significant (p> 0.05). When vegan cheese-like products were evaluated, the sample with the highest antioxidant activity was almond cheese with a TEAC/g value of 9.26 μM and soy cheese with the lowest value of 2.61 μM TEAC/g. The difference in antioxidant activity of vegan cheese-like products was found to be significant (p <0.05). The difference in antioxidant activity of vegan cheese-like products was found to be significant (p <0.05). After in vitro digestion, soy cheese had the highest antioxidant bioavailability of 122.92%, and the sample with the lowest bioavailability was almond cheese with a value of 21.09%. The difference in antioxidant activity of vegan cheese-like products after in vitro digestion was found to be significant (p <0.05). The antioxidant activity and bioavailability of vegan cheese-like products decreased as the storage day progressed. The highest phenolic content in the total phenolic content was found to be 118.01 mg GAE/100 g in soy-almond cheese, and 106.56 mg GAE/100 g in the almond cheese. After in vitro digestion, a significant decrease was observed in the phenolic content of all samples. After in vitro digestion, the highest phenolic substance was found in almond cheese with 3.89 mg GAE/100 g value. The differences between the amounts of phenolic substances after in vitro digestion of the products were found to be significant (p <0.05). It has been determined that probiotic microorganisms found in vegan cheese-like products maintained their probiotic effect level during 45 days of storage. The product with the highest probiotic viability after in vitro digestion is almond cheese. Almond cheese has a viability of 8.28 log10 cfu/g Bifidobacterium bifidum, 8.32 log10 cfu/g Lactobacillus bulgaricus on the last storage day. Soy and soy-almond cheese have a viability below 106 log10 cfu/g after in vitro digestion. S. thermophilus viability was not detected in products after in vitro digestion. The differences between probiotic bacteria viability of the products after in vitro digestion were found to be significant (p <0.05). The most liked product sensory has been soy-almond cheese.