Rice Kefiran is a low fat, highly functional food ingredient that has its roots in the traditional fermented milk called kefir, which has been drunk since long ago in the Caucasian region, an area noted worldwide for its longevity. Kefir is a fermented milk beverage produced from ingredients known as kefir grain, namely the microflora of yeasts and mixed lactic acid bacteria, which are used as a starter. It contains alcohol, lactic acid and carbonic acid and has a distinctive flavour. The flavour is popular in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and 1.2 million tons of kefir are produced annually. Furthermore, kefir is highly valued not only as a beverage but also as a healthy drink and is utilized as part of a macrobiotic diet to promote health and help to maintain good health. Rice Kefiran is a new functional food ingredient with a macrobiotic diet function improved by the pure culture of L. kefiranofaciens cells, which are isolated from kefir, in the components of rice. 【 Features of Rice Kefiran 】 It contains a high concentration of viscous polysaccharide, kefiran. Rice Kefiran is low fat because it is a lactic acid fermented product of the component of rice. It is a homolactic fermented product, so it does not contain either alcohol or carbonic acid. It is the first lactobacillus culture produced using L. kefiranofaciens and most of the derived lactic acid is L (+)-lactic acid. It contains many amino acid-related substances from rice. ■Comparison of the components of Rice Kefiran and kefir (per 100g) Rice Kefiran* Kefir 　　Kefiran 80mg 2mg 　　Calories 9.0〜10.0kcal 52.0〜57.5kcal 　　Water content 97.1〜97.4g 88.2〜89.4g 　　Fat 0g 2.8〜3.3g 　　Alcohol 0g 0.6〜1.1g *Culture medium

【 Standard intake of Rice Kefiran 】 We recommend an intake of 400-500mg of Rice Kefiran a day. 【 Safety issues 】 The lactic acid bacterium used for lactic acid fermentation is L. kefiranofaciens isolated from kefir. The major medium component is rice. Furthermore, we confirmed that the viscous polysaccharide in Rice Kefiran is kefiran, the same structure as the polysaccharide contained in kefir. Therefore, Rice Kefiran is a novel functional food ingredient as well as a safe ingredient based on the food experiences over the years. In the normal safety tests, we confirmed that the mutagenicity and antigenicity are negative and that it showed the same levels of acute toxicity and subacute toxicity as general foods. �@ Single dose toxicity 　　(rat) LD50 > 10g/kg weight �ARepeated dose 　 toxicity (rat) NOAEL > male: 1,329mg Rice Kefiran/kg weight/day NOAEL > female: 1,541mg Rice Kefiran/kg weight/day �BMutagenicity 　(Ames Test) Tested strains: Salmonella typhimurium (TA98, TA100) Cytotoxicity: Negative under the condition of less than 100mg refined Rice Kefiran/mL Mutagenecity: Negative under the condition of less than 100mg refined Rice Kefiran/mL, ±S9 mix �C Antigenicity Negative *These data were collected using refined Rice Kefiran.