Quantitative Microbiological Profiles of Brown Rice and Germinated Brown Rice

Among health conscious people, brown rice (BR) and germinated brown rice (GBR) are increasingly more popular for consumption in Korea because their nutritional values are greater than those of ordinary white rice (WR). The overall microbial counts for BR were higher than those for WR and those of GBR were higher than those of BR. Interestingly, the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) counts in GBR increased markedly and their selected representatives were Weissella confusa, Pediococcus pentosaceus, and Lactobacillus fermentum. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to enumerate and compare LAB loads on WR, BR, and GBR.