Evaluating high pressure-treated corn and waxy corn starches as novel fat replacers in model low-fat O/W emulsions: A physical and rheological study

Recent trends in design of healthier fat replacers: Type, replacement mechanism, sensory evaluation method and consumer acceptance

In recent years, with the increasing awareness of consumers about the relationship between excessive fat intake and chronic diseases, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc., the demand for low-fat foods has increased year by year. However, a simple reduction of fat content in food will cause changes in physical and chemical properties, physiological properties, and sensory properties of food. Therefore, developing high-quality fat replacers to replace natural fats has become an emerging trend, and it is still a technical challenge to completely simulate the special function of natural fat in low-fat foods. This review aims to provide an overview of development trends of fat replacers, and the different types of fat replacers, the potential fat replacement mechanisms, sensory evaluation methods, and their consumer acceptance are discussed and compared, which may provide a theoretical guidance to produce fat replacers and develop more healthy low-fat products favored by consumers.

Characterization of Pickering emulsions stabilized by delipidated egg yolk granular protein nanoparticles crosslinked with ultraviolet radiation

In this study, delipidated egg yolk proteins were used for the first time to prepare nanoparticles by the self-assembling method at pH 8.0, then treated with UV-C as a crosslinking agent, and their stability tested at pH 7.0, which is a more convenient pH for food applications. According to the results obtained, non-irradiated nanoparticles had a size of 431.8 ± 75.7 nm at pH 7.0, but the 10 min UV-C irradiated nanoparticles had an average size of 139.7 ± 5.9 nm. These nanoparticles also showed a high resistance to destabilization by SDS, urea or DTT and noticeable antioxidant and ferrous chelating activities. Pickering emulsions prepared at the nanoparticle concentration of 1 % (w/w) showed the smallest average droplet size and the lowest Turbiscan stability index value after 80 days of storage. All in all, these results have important implications for the utilisation of these proteins as a conventional Pickering emulsifying agent.

Deacetylation and Desuccinylation of the Fucose-Rich Polysaccharide Fucopol: Impact on Biopolymer Physical and Chemical Properties

FucoPol is an acylated polysaccharide with demonstrated valuable functional properties that include a shear thinning fluid behaviour, a film-forming capacity, and an emulsion forming and stabilizing capacity. In this study, the different conditions (concentration, temperature, and time) for alkaline treatment were investigated to deacylate FucoPol. Complete deacetylation and desuccinylation was achieved with 0.02 M NaOH, at 60 °C for 15 min, with no significant impact on the biopolymer’s sugar composition, pyruvate content, and molecular mass distribution. FucoPol depyruvylation by acid hydrolysis was attempted, but it resulted in a very low polymer recovery. The effect of the ionic strength, pH, and temperature on the deacetylated/desuccinylated polysaccharide, d-FucoPol, was evaluated, as well as its emulsion and film-forming capacity. d-FucoPol aqueous solutions maintained the shear thinning behaviour characteristic of FucoPol, but the apparent viscosity decreased significantly. Moreover, contrary to FucoPol, whose solutions were not affected by the media’s ionic strength, the d-FucoPol solutions had a significantly higher apparent viscosity for a higher ionic strength. On the other hand, the d-FucoPol solutions were not affected by the pH in the range of 3.6–11.5, while FucoPol had a decreased viscosity for acidic pH values and for a pH above 10.5. Although d-FucoPol displayed an emulsification activity for olive oil similar to that of FucoPol (98 ± 0%) for an oil-to-water ratio of 2:3, the emulsions were less viscous. The d-FucoPol films were flexible, with a higher Young′s modulus (798 ± 152 MPa), a stress at the break (22.5 ± 2.5 MPa), and an elongation at the break (9.3 ± 0.7%) than FucoPol (458 ± 32 MPa, 15.5 ± 0.3 MPa and 8.1 ± 1.0%, respectively). Given these findings, d-FucoPol arises as a promising novel biopolymer, with distinctive properties that may render it useful for utilization as a suspending or emulsifier agent, and as a barrier in coatings and packaging films.

Development of Dressing-Type Emulsion with Hydrocolloids from Butternut Squash Seed: Effect of Additives on Emulsion Stability

Background: Natural ingredients have been employed to develop food products. Methods: Hydrocolloids from butternut squash seeds (HBSSs) were extracted with water at pH 3, 7, and 10 and characterized bromatologically and rheologically; then these HBSSs were used to stabilize the dressing-type emulsion by evaluating its physicochemical, rheological, and microstructural properties. Results: Hydrocolloids presented higher protein (from 20.43 to 39.39%) and carbohydrate (from 50.05 to 52.68%) content and rheological properties with a predominant elastic modulus. HBSSs extracted at pH 10 were used for the development of the dressing-type emulsion. The samples were stable during the storage period (15 days), with a good microstructural organization showing non-Newtonian fluid properties with shear-thinning behavior when the pseudoplasticity and the oil droplet size decreased with the addition of HBSS. Conclusions: Hydrocolloid constituents were detected surrounding the droplets of the emulsions, intensifying the effects of inner droplet interaction due to depletion events and a strong influence on the structure and physical stability. The hydrocolloids used to stabilize the dressing-type emulsions are additively promising in microstructured food design.