Food Fermentation: A Sustainable Approach to Enrich Water Soluble Vitamins

Nutrients especially water soluble vitamins are vital for health and the requirements can be only met by oral or intramuscular route. Diet plays an essential role in fulfilling daily vitamin dose, however, lack of awareness, poor bioavailability, and indigestibility leads to deficiency of water soluble vitamins. Furthermore, due to diverse dietary habits, and advancement in food technology approaches, consumers are exploring a wide range of options to fulfil their nutritional needs. The microbial production of vitamins provides a naturally and economically interesting approach to improve the vitamin content of fermented foods. The benefit of fermented foods for consumer is not only limited to water soluble vitamins but also a good source of antioxidants, and improved antimicrobial, probiotic and organoleptic qualities. It enhances the nutritional quality, bioavailability of nutrients, and involves various physical and biochemical changes based on food substrate used and fermenting microorganism. Moreover, food treatment and the length of fermentation during processing also affect food fermentation. For all the fermented foods and beverages that have been identified, lactic acid bacteria (L.A.B.) is the dominant microbiota, which has been considered the most critical part contributing to beneficial effects in fermented foods/beverages. In this review, will briefly discuss the role of microbial fermentation on production of water soluble vitamin on different substrate, their mechanism and its application in view of enhancing the nutritional quality.