Immunological Impact of Fermented Soybean Condiments Produced from Indigenous Fermenters

Several studies have shown that most condiments consumed in Nigeria today are fortified with chemicals that alter the nature and stripped the natural immunological adjuvants designed by nature to protect the body system. Several condiments have been developed from fermented foods in order to control this ugly situation but there is still controversial thought in the choice of microorganism to be used in order to produce a non-toxic condiment with an improved immunological function. The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxicity, nutritive value and immunological impact of fermented soybean condiments. Soybean (Glycine max) sample was fermented with indigenous microorganisms isolated from 7 days old fermented soybean sample; this was oven-dried, pulverized and packaged in a cleaned sterile screw capped container. The immunological impact, pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory activities were determined using in vivo and instrumentation techniques. Lactobacillus plantarum strain ZS 2058 (L), Bacillus subtilis strain 168 (B) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain YJM555 (Y) were the indigenous microbes used both singly and in consortium for the production of light to dark brown condiments with water activity ranging from 0.27 – 0.37 for the fermented soybean in the plate and 0.22 - 0.36 for the fermented soybean wrapped with Thaumatococcus danielli leaves (called Uma in Igbo and Ewe eran in Yoruba). There was pronounced delay type hypersensitivity (DTH) and significant (P<0.05) elevation of lymphocyte population, rosette counts, antibody titers, phagocytic indices, total lymphocytes and malondialdehyde (MDA) values, of which pronounced activities were mostly seen on those condiments prepared with consortium of the organisms (BLY). Therefore condiments produced from fermentation of soybean using indigenous B, L, Y, BL and BLY are recommended as this would enhance its immunological impact and also safe, and those fermented in plastic plates using BLY were most efficient, preferable and acceptable.