DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION OF ADVANCED EMULSIONS AS BIOACTIVE COMPOUND CARRIERS FOR LOW-SATURATED FAT FOOD PRODUCTS: TECHNOLOGICAL AND NUTRITIONAL ASPECTS
type: CreativeWork
description: Research in food engineering is increasingly using reverse engineering principles to design healthier food products. Growing concerns about the high intake of fat-rich foods and the associated increased risk of chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension are driving the food industry to reformulate full-fat products by reducing total or saturated fat content while maintaining good physicochemical and sensory properties. However, fat provides the food matrix with important features, so its reduction or replacement can generate undesirable outcomes and unacceptability by consumers. One of the most promising strategies to reduce saturated fat content in foods is based on the use of emulsions. Particularly, advanced emulsions can prevent instability phenomena and provide new features, such as the ability to act as carriers for bioactive compounds and the possibility to engineer their interface to control digestive fate. In this context, the overarching goal of this PhD project was to design advanced emulsions intended as ingredients in low-saturated fat foods, and as potential bioactive compound carriers, thereby creating healthier products. At first, a complete literature survey about advanced emulsions in terms of composition and process conditions was performed to identify knowledge gaps and define experimental factors and the most suitable methods for emulsion characterization. Then the effect of emulsifier concentration and corn oil volume phase on single, Pickering, heat-filled gel, and cold-filled gel emulsions were studied by means of Design of Experiments techniques. Soy lecithin (SL), octenyl succinic anhydride starch (OSA), chickpea protein isolate (CPI), and citrus fibers (CF) were used as emulsifiers. Based on the highly significant models calculated for apparent viscosity and droplet size, emulsion formulations were optimized using Response Surface Methodology coupled with the desirability function. All optimized advanced systems outperformed…
abstract: Research in food engineering is increasingly using reverse engineering principles to design healthier food products. Growing concerns about the high intake of fat-rich foods and the associated increased risk of chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension are driving the food industry to reformulate full-fat products by reducing total or saturated fat content while maintaining good physicochemical and sensory properties. However, fat provides the food matrix with important features, so its reduction or replacement can generate undesirable outcomes and unacceptability by consumers. One of the most promising strategies to reduce saturated fat content in foods is based on the use of emulsions. Particularly, advanced emulsions can prevent instability phenomena and provide new features, such as the ability to act as carriers for bioactive compounds and the possibility to engineer their interface to control digestive fate. In this context, the overarching goal of this PhD project was to design advanced emulsions intended as ingredients in low-saturated fat foods, and as potential bioactive compound carriers, thereby creating healthier products. At first, a complete literature survey about advanced emulsions in terms of composition and process conditions was performed to identify knowledge gaps and define experimental factors and the most suitable methods for emulsion characterization. Then the effect of emulsifier concentration and corn oil volume phase on single, Pickering, heat-filled gel, and cold-filled gel emulsions were studied by means of Design of Experiments techniques. Soy lecithin (SL), octenyl succinic anhydride starch (OSA), chickpea protein isolate (CPI), and citrus fibers (CF) were used as emulsifiers. Based on the highly significant models calculated for apparent viscosity and droplet size, emulsion formulations were optimized using Response Surface Methodology coupled with the desirability function. All optimized advanced systems outperformed…
author: LOFFREDI, ELEONORA
language: eng
keywords: Advanced emulsion, in-vitro digestibility, INFOGEST, ice cream, cookie, low-saturated fat, Settore AGRI-07/A - Scienze e tecnologie alimentari
date published: 2024-12-20
date modified: 2026-07-27T20:19:03Z
provider: Università degli Studi di Milano
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Università degli Studi di Milano

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/1119273