Project

Emulsion-templated structuring of liquid oil for future development of saturated fat-free food products

Acronym
SAT-FAT-FREE
Code
41W03413
Duration
01 September 2013 → 31 August 2017
Funding
European funding: framework programme
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Other chemical sciences
  • Medical and health sciences
    • Nutrition and dietetics
  • Agricultural and food sciences
    • Agricultural animal production
    • Food sciences and (bio)technology
Keywords
saturated fat-free food products
 
Project description

The dangers of consuming high amounts of saturated fats have been well-documented in the past couple of decades. Surprisingly, even after much negative publicity and consumer concerns, the replacement of saturated fats in manufactured food products has been very slow. Some promising alternative systems have been identified as the future of oil structuring without the presence of saturated fats. However, their potential for food applications are yet to be proven in actual product conditions. Emulsions are the most common colloidal systems that forms basis of many of the edible food products, hence structuring approaches based on the use of emulsions as the templates can be consudered ideal for food application provided we restrict ourselves to the use of food-grade materials. the proposed research is an ambitious project to enhance the fundamental understanding of the complex physico-chemical and colloidal aspects that acompany the process of oil structuring. the specific objectives of the proposed research is to focus on the use of food-grade materials such as proteins and polyaccharides to generate oil continuous and water continuous emulsions and further use these emulsions as templates to chnage liquid oil into soft, elastic gel-like systems.