4.2. Types of cheeses
Cheese was the food selected for the screening and isolation of
GABA-producing lactic acid bacteria, although other food samples
were also proposed. Several Spanish fermented sausages such as
chorizo or ‘longaniza’ and dairy products like yoghurts, butter milk
or cream also contain a variety of lactic acid strains, which has been
added as culture starters. The homemade cheeses contain only wild
strains, which show a wide range of metabolic activities and
diverge greatly from the strains that are used as industrial culture
starters (Klijn, Weerkamp, & de Vos, 1995) in fermented food
products. In this study, in which 58 artisan cheeses were analyzed,
we obtained a total of 65 positive strains of GABA production from
23 different cheeses.