Functional foods have gained gradual recognition as we learned that healthy diets result from not only eating nutritious foods but from the identification of the mechanisms by which foods modulate metabolism and gut health.

Now research is focusing on the area of probiotics. We can say this is the 'golden period' of probiotics as probiotics is not a new word, it was first conceptualized by the Russian Nobel prize winner and father of modern immunology Elie Metchnikoff at the beginning of the 20th century.