BIO-TRANSFORMED

VITAMIN AND MINERAL YEASTS

HOW THE PROCESS WORKS

What Is The Purpose Of Our Process

To provide living Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, in an environment conducive to its growth and propagation, a media containing whole foods and pure nutrients so that those USP and FCC vitamins and minerals may be biochemically transformed from pure isolated chemicals into complex components of a whole food matrix, and so be in a complex form much closer to that found in Nature.  

This is accomplished through Bio-Foods' proprietary yeast fermentation processes.  For nutritional enhancement, improvements in digestibility, and other benefits of fermentation in addition to the nutritional contributions of the organism itself, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the ideal choice.  Yeast cells are a rich source of nutrients and during fermentation Yeast is busy synthesizing vitamins and other nutrients, so the net amount ofnutrientsin the fermentation media isincreased.  

In brief, Bio-Transformed® Vitamin and Mineral Yeasts are produced by enriching a proprietary liquid food media with a particular vitamin or mineral prior to a lengthy active fermentation phase.  The prepared media is inoculated with a substantial amount of live Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast and allowed to ferment for up to 72 hours.  

Substantial amounts of water are required for true fermentation, so each product must be spray dried to evaporate the water.  Each product is then subjected to rigorous quality assurance analysis including appropriate microbiological testing.

Yeast cell walls are no longer intact in the finished product.  First, proteolytic enzymes are added at the very end of the fermentation phase to help weaken or break the cell walls.  Before reaching the spray-drying chamber the liquid is put through a homogenizer which breaks a significant amount of the cell walls.  

Then, during spray-drying most of the remaining unbroken yeast cells tend to burst, further eliminating the presence of intact cell walls in the dried product.  Breaking of the yeast cell walls helps to render the yeast inactive, improve digestibility, and avoid allergic reactions to intact active yeast cells.

How Does Yeast Access The Nutrients In Its Media

In the January 1999 issue of Prepared Foods, Daniel Best, a technology development consultant was quoted  “…yeast…can be manipulated to collect and concentrate a variety of nutrients.  Interest will grow in using these micro-organisms as delivery vehicles for value added nutrients…”.  Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast has a very unique transportation enzyme superfamily, the ABC protein complex, which can transport almost any biological substance, regardless of its physical properties (Winkle, Biomembrane Transport. Academic Press. 1995).  This flexibility gives this yeast an optimum interactive ability with materials in the fermentation media.

How Does Yeast Manipulate And Change The Nutrients In Its Media

Living cells have evolved a means to derive, store, and use chemical energy from fuel molecules found in food.  Energy released by the breakdown of those molecules is captured and held within the cell in the high-energy phosphate bonds of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which serves as the major energy "currency" inall living things.  That "currency" can be "spent" (released) by the cell at any time to perform its work (contracting muscles for example).  It's a little like our deriving energy from the breakdown of atoms, delivered to us as electricity and stored in the "currency" of batteries which we carry around until we need to "spend" it (to operate a cellular phone for example).  

The major fuel molecule found in food is glucose.  The first step in the cell's energy-capturing process, called glycolysis or fermentation, is the breaking down of glucose with the aid of specific cell enzymes.  The enzymes in yeast cells that break down glucose and its many other cell enzymes, manipulate and transfer electrons and protons in ways that convert and form certain substances.  ATP formation is just one example. The conversion and formation of substances by enzymes of cells constitutes the action of fermentation (the original name for enzymes was in fact "ferments").  

Fermentation therefore, is essentially a process during which living cells harvest fuel molecules from food in order to generate ATP for their own energy needs.  During that process metabolic and bio-chemical alteration of the physico-chemical makeup of the fermented food occurs. One result is that simple USP vitamin and mineral isolates are transformed into highly complex components of the food matrix, in which the nutrient (as in all natural foods) is in complex formation with other constituents of the food matrix.  

Yeast Enhances The Nutritional Profile Of Each Product

Yeast is a rich source of vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, and numerous other beneficial substances, some of which are quantified on our Product Data Sheets.