Folk to functional: An explorative overview of rice-based fermented foods and beverages in India

Fermented foods share an integral part of age-old wisdom from ancient Indian civilization. Over the generations, this pioneering practice of food fermentation has expanded and improved to preserve and fortify the available food resources, particularly to meet the hidden hunger. India, being the second largest producer of rice, has a great history of traditional rice-based fermented foods with different tastes and textures linked with cultural diversity and mostly prepared by rural women following village art techniques. Some of them have been scientifically investigated and it has been revealed that microflora in natural or starter culture plays imperative roles to bio-embolden the rice with varieties of health promoting macronutrients and micronutrients, phytochemicals, and other functional components during fermentation. In this review, some explorative information on traditional rice-based foods and beverages has been assembled to illustrate the global interest in Indian food heritage and their functional aspects. The review also deals with the preparation of raw materials, traditional processing, composition, and ethno-medicinal importance of each food to encourage entrepreneurs to develop large-scale production to meet the growing market demand of functional foods.