Food fermentations

This webpage provides a general primer on microbially-fermented foods. It shows the wealth of foods around the world that are produced by fermentative processes. This webpage provides an entry to fermented foods from milk, grains, vegetables, honey, meat, and other foods. This webpage also contains links to recent publications in the area of food microbiology, but the papers selected differ from those chosen for Biology Online. Xanthomonas campestris strains make a thick, gummy polymer that is added to many foods, such as salad dresssings. These bacteria, that are also important plant pathogens, have been subjected to genome sequencing and this site provides linkage to those projects. The genes involved in xanthan gum biosynthesis are clustered in what is known as the Gum operon. This webpage compares the operons from different Xanthomonas and Xylella strains. Xanthan gum is a bacterial exopolymer that is used in foods. This page describes tests to determine the level of safety for ingestion of xanthan gum. This web article describes the world of fermented foods. It is not generally appreciated that common foods like black tea, Tabasco and vanilla are derived from fermentations. This web book describes the fermentations of cereal grains.