Traditional Ethnic Fermented Foods and their Naturally Associated Microbial Resources: Sustainable Source for Promoting Human Health, Food Safety, and Security

Food fermentation is a complex ecosystem where naturally occurring autochthonous or added microorganisms adapt to the complex raw materials and the environment, thereby leading to the competitive selection of populations that are more effectively adapted and responded to in situ conditions. This creates a dynamic change in the microbial community and metabolic profile to form a stable fermented food ecosystem with characteristic microbiota structure and composition, metabolome, organoleptic properties, and health benefits. Thus, each type of food fermentation is a unique microbial ecosystem and understanding it will provide better knowledge of fermented food microbial ecology, which has direct implications on future applications such as the development of novel production technologies, efficient starter cultures, fermented functional foods, and probiotics. Besides, traditional fermented foods are important for value addition and harnessing potential microbes that can ensure food safety and security in this global scenario of a future food crisis.

Traditional fermented foods and the associated microbes are diverse depending on the substrate and the methods used for the fermentations. Unlike pure culture-based fermentations, most of the ethnic food fermentations encompass several microbial species in consortia, and microbial succession is a common phenomenon in such food fermentations. The limitations in current knowledge include a lack of a comprehensive view of the microbial community structure of several ethnic fermented foods and some lack of understanding of microbial succession and interactions and the specific roles played by the associated microbes in fermentations.

In this Research Topic, we welcome the submission of reviews and original research manuscripts that address advances in the microbial ecology of traditional ethnic fermented foods (community structure, succession, and interaction), their nutritional qualities and health benefits, using the microbial resources for the development of production technologies, efficient starter cultures, fermented functional foods, and probiotics. Furthermore, the scope also includes systems biology approaches including the use of omics to reveal biologically relevant aspects related to ethnic fermented foods.