Author(s):

VT Kharat and HW Deshpande

Abstract: An increasing demand of consumers for foodstuffs supplemented with live LAB, preferentially probiotic ones, gave rise to studies on the enrichment of some other foods with these microorganisms. Despite high fat and sugar contents, chocolate consumption makes a positive contribution to human nutrition through provision of antioxidants, principally polyphenols including flavonoids such as epicatechin, catechin and notably, the procyanidins. The main objective of this work was to obtain a potentially probiotic chocolate by using microencapsulated Lactobacillus strains and to study the mineral composition as well as microbial characteristics of probiotic chocolate. This probiotic milk chocolate displayed the similar mineral content with the mineral content of control chocolate (without LAB). The number of live bacterial cells was maintained at the functional level of 10⁷ - 10⁹ Cfu/g after keeping for 4 weeks at 4⁰ C. the chocolate sample was free from Coliform and E. coli when the sample was fresh and throughout the storage period of 4 weeks at refrigerator temperature (4ºC) as result of good hygienic and sanitary conditions, during the preparation of the chocolate.

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