Title
Mechanical properties of whey protein/Na alginate gel microparticles
Date Issued
01 November 2016
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Publisher(s)
Elsevier Ltd
Abstract
A proportion of the fast-growing elderly population needs special foods which are soft to chew and easily swallowed. Gel microparticles, GMP, (e.g., less than 100 μm in size) are an alternative as texture-modifiers in liquid and pureed foods, and may be used as carriers of needed flavors and nutrients. GMP (sizes < 40 μm) were fabricated from whey protein isolate (WPI)/sodium alginate (NaAlg) mixtures by size reduction of bulk gels made by the cold-gelation method. A cell test based on back extrusion was designed to evaluate the mechanical properties of a GMP paste and image analysis techniques implemented to resolve the size of GMP. A good correlation (R2 = 0.89) was obtained between the stress (at 60% strain) of bulk gels and that of GMP. Compression stress at 30% strain depended on the concentrations of WPI and NaAlg and a maximum was observed at intermediate values. Through Principal Component Analysis gels with low and high sodium alginate contents were clearly explaining 93% of the variability. The ample range of mechanical properties of GMP suggest that they may be used to design or modify the texture of soft foods.
Start page
1
End page
7
Volume
188
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Tecnologías de bioprocesamiento, Biocatálisis, Fermentación
Alimentos y bebidas
Biotecnología agrícola, Biotecnología alimentaria
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85032069434
Source
Journal of Food Engineering
ISSN of the container
02608774
Sponsor(s)
Work reported is part of the doctoral thesis of Alicia Leon Tacca under support of CONICYT (The National Commission for Science and Technology, Chile) . Financial support from the Korean Food Research Institute (KFRI) through a contract with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile is appreciated. The authors also acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Gabriel Leiva in the image analysis of samples.
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus