THE FERMENTATION
PRINCIPLE
With fermentation (lat. fermentum: leaven)
biotechnology refers to converting organic
materials using bacteria, mushroom and cell
cultures or else by adding enzymes. This
allows medical products, for example,
such as insulin, hyaluronic acid and a
range of antibiotics such as penicillin, to
be industrially synthesised in bioreactors
with the help of microorganisms.
Microorganisms are able to form
materials that cannot be produced, or
only with great difficulty, chemically.
During the fermentation of Effective
Microorganisms, strong anti-oxidising,
supporting substances (enzymes,
vitamins, amino acids, bioactive
substances, …) are produced instead of
decomposition and there are no life-
threatening metabolites (such as
ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, …) that
are produced.
The best example of fermentation is the
production of sauerkraut. During this
process, nutrition that is rich in vitamin C
is produced from raw cabbage which is
low in vitamin C. This is induced by the
fermentative bacteria, especially lactic
acid cultures in this case.
