​PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-2212

Contract no. TE 62 / 2020

Project title: Structural and thermo-oxidative behavior of lipids structured by different mechanisms in process dynamics of several food products and thereof techno-functionality

SUMMARY​

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            The conversion of edible liquid oil (> 90% w) into a gelled structure (i.e., oleogelation) by the means of structurants molecules, without changing the chemical properties of the oil, is receiving a great interest from food researchers in the last few years . This is due to the fact in order to minimise the intake of industrial artificial trans-fat, European commission banned very recently (24 April 2019) the trans-fat content in food by Regulation (UE) 2019/649 and US FDA released its’ final determination on the same issue. Several gelation mechanisms were proposed in the last years, and almost all available vegetable oils were randomly tested for oleogels formulation. However, the limitations of current approaches are related to the fact that the majority of available published papers in Oleogel topic advanced the knowledge mainly by developing and deeply characterizing (microscopic morphology, calorimetry, rheology, texture, etc) the structured lipids obtained while comparing the new oleogels, ONLY with similar reference fats aimed to be replaced (e.g., butter, margarine, animal fat, etc.), and concluding that oleogels match/ do not match desired properties.  Although no clear efficient substitution of conventional saturated fat was reported to present, several researchers had randomly selected oleogels formulation and synergic /hybrid combinations for partial or full replacement of regular fat in different food products (margarine, pastry, meat, dairy & confectionery), encouraging results being reported.  However, most available literature on the topic, characterize solely oleogels and final products techno-functionalities, being very difficult to optimize the products by deeply understanding oleogels behavior in process dynamics.  Consequently, this project aims to systematically assess the structural and thermo-oxidative behavior of lipids structured by different mechanisms in process dynamics of several food products and thereof techno-functionality.