Fermented Foods in Health and Disease
Prevention

Consumer preferences toward healthy food choices have driven the development of functional foods by contemporary food markets. Fermentation was
historically used to preserve food, but today it is gaining tremendous attention since it provides healthy food products that go beyond basic nutrition
and sensory properties. Existing scientific data show that many fermented
foods have both nutritive and nonnutritive compounds that have the potential to modulate specific target functions in the body, which contribute to the
health and well-being of consumers. Naturally fermented foods and beverages contain beneficial microorganisms that transform the chemical constituents of raw materials from animal/plant origin during food fermentation,
thereby improving the sensory, nutritional, and health-promoting properties
of the food. In particular, microorganisms in fermented foods facilitate the
bioavailability of nutrients, enrich the food with bioactive compounds, confer probiotic functions, degrade toxic components and antinutritive factors,
and impart biopreservative effects by producing antioxidant and antimicrobial compound