Nutritional and physicochemical characteristics of novel health food - probiotic soy yoghurt

Soybean confers health benefits such as reducing cardiovascular diseases, menopausal symptoms, arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis and improving brain function. Soy food products are perceived as healthy food and constitute an important part ofthe diet. Soy yoghurt is an economical and healthy substitute of dairy based probiotics, suitable for lactose intolerant population. Keeping in view the health attributes of soy foods, soy yoghurt was prepared with two different probiotic cultures and evaluated for sensory, nutritional and physicochemical parameters. Soy yoghurt was prepared with three dilutions of soy milk viz. 1:5, 1:6 and 1:10 utilizing each culture. Soy yoghurt sample prepared with 1:6 dilution of milk was most acceptable with overall acceptability score of7.15 and 7.45 in case of Lactobacillus fermentum BBE4 and Streptococcus faecalis T110, respectively. The appearance, texture, aroma and flavor scores were higher for Streptococcus faecalis T110 inoculated soy yoghurt. The nutritional parameters were not different for yoghurt samples prepared with different probiotic cultures at different dilutions. The pH and titratable acidity Probiotic soy yoghurt prepared using 1:6 dilution of milk and Streptococcus faecalis T110 was higher and can be attributed to its higher sensory scores.