Abstract:

Cardiovascular disease is now becoming one of the most dangerous diseases. Currently, the development of functional foods to prevent cardiovascular diseases is the hot topic in food science. The probiotic Lactobacillia with cholesterol-degrading activity screened from Chinese traditional fermented foods can be applied to develop functional foods, which will be good for cardiovascular diseases. Lactobacillus ferment F1 was screened to reveal high cholesterol-degrading activity. The effects of inoculum amount, fermentation time and fermentation temperature were investigated to evaluate yogurt quality. The fermentation condition was optimized through response surface analysis (RSA) and the optimal fermentation condition was 4.0% inoculum amount and fermentation at 39 ℃ for 8 h. Under this optimal condition, the degradation rate of cholesterol reached up to 49.16%, and increased by 8.79% than before optimization.

Key words: Lactobacillus fermentum F1, cholesterol-degrading activity, response surface method (RSM)