Fermented foods were likely to have been the first among all types of processed foods consumed by human beings. The role that fermented food plays is not only related to the development of civilizations and cultural relationships between countries but also related to the nutritional importance of its population. Of course, the early manufacturers of fermented foods didn’t take into account the advantages of modern sciences, because enzymes and microorganisms were discovered just 150-200 years ago. For that reason, we can conclude why the ancient fermentation techniques were known to philosophers and alchemists, but not to biologists. It demonstrated that the fermentation mechanisms involved many secrets still undiscovered. Recently, applications of molecular techniques for analyzing and study the fermented foods have been explored. In this review, we provide answers with a critical vision to many questions for understanding the role of molecular techniques to discover the secrets of fermented foods such as how to evaluate the traditional fermented foods? Why using molecular techniques to study the fermented foods not else? Is the future will carry to us a boom in molecular technologies contribute to the detection of more secrets of the fermented food?

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分子技术揭示了发酵食品的更多秘密

发酵食品很可能是人类食用的所有类型加工食品中的第一类。发酵食品所起的作用不仅与国家之间文明和文化关系的发展有关，而且还与其人口的营养重要性有关。当然，早期的发酵食品制造商没有考虑到现代科学的优势，因为酶和微生物是在150-200年前发现的。因此，我们可以得出结论，为什么古老的发酵技术被哲学家和炼金术士所熟知，而生物学家却不为之所知。这表明发酵机制涉及许多尚未发现的秘密。最近，已经探索了分子技术在分析和研究发酵食品中的应用。在这篇评论中，我们以批判性的眼光回答了许多问题，以了解分子技术在发现发酵食品秘密方面的作用，例如如何评估传统发酵食品？为什么不使用分子技术研究发酵食品呢？未来是否会带给我们分子技术的繁荣，从而有助于发现更多发酵食品的秘密？