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Fermented milk from Armenia

NarineՆարինե

Narine is a therapeutic and dietary fermented milk made with a single strain, Er 317/402, a pure culture isolated from the faeces of newborn babies. It is used to treat gut disorders and in infant feeding, and Armenia has a national standard for it, AST 173-2015.

Fully documentedFermented milk32 h – 3 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedNo recipe amounts were found in a public source. The Armenian standard AST 173-2015 covers the product, but its text is sold, not published.
Cow's milkSkim milk is used to keep and grow the culture[markosyan1998]
Narine culture, strain INMIA 9602 Er 317/402A freeze-dried form was tested by Charchoghlyan et al. (2016)[charchoghlyan2016]
Starterdefined single-strain culture: INMIA 9602 Er 317/402 (Narine)

Total time across the recorded steps: 32 h – 3 days

Start
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shapes, not to countL. acidophilusLactobacillus helveticus37–38 °CMilk sugarLactic acid

What changes: The Narine strain is grown warm in skim milk to make the starter

Step 1 of 5
Grow the culture in skim milk
Time
24 h – 2 days
Reported
Temperature
37–38 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. acidophilus
Lactobacillus helveticus

These are the conditions a study used to grow the strain on skim milk, not a factory recipe. Output: active Narine starter.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

the Narine strain grows in the milk

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Narine is a therapeutic and dietary fermented milk made with a single strain, Er 317/402, a pure culture isolated from the faeces of newborn babies. It is used to treat gut disorders and in infant feeding, and Armenia has a national standard for it, AST 173-2015. Made in 5 steps over 32 h – 3 days. The longest step, grow the culture in skim milk, takes 24 h – 2 days (Markosyan L.S 1998) and runs at 37–38 °C (Markosyan L.S 1998). Strain INMIA 9602 Er 317/402, named Lactobacillus acidophilus by its author; genetic tests place it in Lactobacillus helveticus does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 2 daysReported[markosyan1998]Grow the culture in skim milk
Temperature37–38 °CReported[markosyan1998]Grow the culture in skim milk

What makes this one different

Narine is made with one named strain from the gut of newborns, not a mixed culture. Unlike typical L. acidophilus, the strain sours whole milk fast and gives a viscous curd.

Related ferments

Safety

The patent that describes the process (RU 2035871) requires that smears of the finished Narine show no microflora other than lactic rod-shaped bacteria, and it pasteurises the milk at 90 °C for 6 minutes first. A laboratory study reported that Narine culture, freeze-dried or heat-treated, held Cronobacter sakazakii in artificially contaminated reconstituted infant formula to 10^7 CFU/mL or less within 3 h at 37 °C, while the untreated control grew from 1.62×10^8 to 5.36×10^9 CFU/mL in 6 h (Charchoghlyan 2016). It was a preliminary in vitro test, not a test of Narine milk. Up to 10^7 CFU/mL stayed in the formula, so it does not show that Narine makes contaminated formula safe. CDC says Cronobacter infections can be life-threatening in newborns and that powdered formula is not sterile [cdc-cronobacter].

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The patent below lists the strain as INMIA-9602 of the Institute of Microbiology of the Armenian academy. Patent RU 2035871 (filed 28 July 1992, published 27 May 1995; inventors Levon Yerzinkyan, Laura Akopyan and Liana Charyan) describes the milk process, says Prof. L. A. Yerzinkyan worked out the process settings (temperatures, starter share, times) for this strain, and cites a 1964 USSR author's certificate, No. 163573, for the strain. Armenian standard AST 173-2015 (in force from 1 March 2016) replaced AST 173-98.

  1. [markosyan1998] Markosyan L.S., Balayan A.M., Malatyan M.P. 1998, Cytological and biochemical features of the lactic acid bacteria of the product "Narine" (Russian), Biological Journal of Armenia 3(51), from p. 171paper
  2. [oganesyan-narine] Oganesyan G.G., Barsegyan A.A., Danielyan L.V., Pashayan M.M., Species identity of the starter culture of the therapeutic-dietary fermented milk drink Narine (Russian), pp. 95–101, Armenian digital librarypaper
  3. [charchoghlyan2016] Charchoghlyan H., Kwon H., Hwang D.J., Lee J.S., Lee J., Kim M. 2016, Inhibition of Cronobacter sakazakii by Lactobacillus acidophilus n.v. Er2 317/402, Korean Journal for Food Science of Animal Resources 36(5):635–640paper
  4. [ru2035871] Patent RU 2035871 C1, Способ производства кисломолочного продукта (Method of producing a fermented milk product), Yerzinkyan L.A., Akopyan L.G., Charyan L.M.; filed 1992-07-28, published 1995-05-27 (Google Patents page; an applicant's own claims)other
  5. [cdc-cronobacter] US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Cronobacter infectiongov
  6. [ast173] AST 173-2015, Acido-lactic product "Narine". General specifications, national standard of the Republic of Armenia (catalogue entry only)spec