Microbiological Approaches for Food Analogues Production: Nutritional and Safety Aspects

Food analogs represent foods substitutes with attractive features for consumers, including “free-from” properties, for cholesterol, allergens, hormones, and antibiotic residues; with high content of vitamins, minerals, bioactive phytochemical compounds, dietary fibers (including prebiotics), and active probiotics. Despite these functional characteristics, food analogue formulation and production are dependent on additives used to achieve consumer acceptability. In this sense, it is of great interest to develop strategies to emulate conventional foods’ sensorial and nutritional characteristics with minimal additive use. Such strategies may include the use of fermentative microbiological species and microbial metabolites, to ensure nutritional and safety aspects in food analogues. Hence, the objective of this chapter is to address the microbiological approaches present in the production of food analogues based on the use of microbial processes for the preservation and control of nutritional and safety aspects in food analogues, maintaining sensory properties and quality of the final product.