Significances of Solid State Fermentative Processing of Soibum

In Manipur the provision of natural lactic acid fermentation in food processing has been adopting since ancient time in the production of Soibum, Soidon and Soijin from bamboo shoots. Soibum which is the chief among these, has been produced with the involvement of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) such as Lactobacillus brevis, L. Plantarum, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and L. phallax etc. However, yeasts such as Saccharomyces, Tolulopsis and Pichia sps. etc. are also involved in Soibum fermentation under predominancy of LAB. The traditional commercial scale production of Soibum has been undergone adopting exudate retaining and exudate draining methods. From the present contribution it could be ascertained that Soibum fermentation caused significant increase of free amino acids, polyphenols, phosphate and phytosterols etc. along with significant decrease of phytate. Polyphenols are antioxidants claimed to be useful in prevention of cancer, coronary heart disease and diabetes etc. As potent as other solid state fermentation, Soibum fermentation increased polyphenol content by 2.43- 4.42 times during a month.