Lactobacillus containing product

A method to produce a food product comprising non-viable Lactobacillus bacteria, wherein the Lactobacillus bacteria are added in such a way that no substantial fermentation of the food product by said Lactobacillus will take place.

EXAMPLE 
 Growing Lactobacillus Strains and Making them Non-viable A suitable medium like MRS (De Man et al. J. Applied Bacteriol. 23(1960)130-135), or an industrial equivalent, or skim milk, fortified with 0.35% yeast extract and 0.35% peptone, is inoculated with 0.5% of a Lactobacillus culture, that has been stored at −80° C. as a full grown culture in skim milk, diluted with sterile 10% glycerol to an end volume of 6% glycerol. The culture is grown without stirring for 6-24 h at a temperature that is suitable for the specific strain (generally between 28° C. and 43° C.). This so-called pre-culture is used to inoculate a larger volume of a suitable industrial medium at a concentration of 0.1%. The cells are killed by pasteurization in batch (10-30 min. at 75° C.) or in line (30 seconds 72° C.), collected by centrifugation or filtration, and added to the products. If needed for the process, the cells can be spray-dried first on a suitable food-grade carrier such as whey or milk proteins. Alternatively, a Lactobacillus strain is grown to very high cell densities in a Cell-Recycle Fermentor (Bibal et al., Biotech. and Bioeng. 37(1991)746-754) in which densities up to 80 g/l are obtained. A part of this cell mass consists of already killed cells, and the rest can be killed by the mild pasteurisation methods described. Lactobacillus strains can also be grown on a large scale in a suitable food-grade medium, added directly to the product process and killed subsequently during the processing as described in the following examples. 
 Example I Milkshake 100 mls of vanilla flavoured ice-cream is mixed with 100 ml of cooled milk, 10 ml of strawberry syrup. Lactobacillus GG (ATCC 53103) 10 11 bacteria in 10 grammes of water, was heat treated to render the bacteria non-viable, cooled and added to the mix. The mixture is fed through a blender and immediately served. 
 Example II Mayonnaise 100 mls of sunflower oil and 5 grammes of powdered egg yolk were gradually mixed with a mixture of 25 mls of vinegar (pH 3.0) and 10 10 bacteria (Lactobacillus rhamnosus VTT, rendered non-viable by the low pH of the vinegar) to obtain a mayonnaise. 
 Example III Tomato sauce 100 grammes of minced meat was cooked in a spoonful of olive oil, 200 grammes of tomato sauce was added as well as 10 10 viable Lactobacillus bacteria (Lactobacillus casei strain DN-114001). The sauce was flavoured with salt and pepper and left to simmer for 10 minutes to cook the sauce and render the bacteria non-viable. 
 Example IV 100 grammes of margarine (Flora UK) was mixed with a mixture of 10 9 Lactobacillus bacteria (Lactobacillus casei strain Shirota), the bacteria had previously been dried to A w 0.78 to render them non-viable.