Dietary fibre enrichment in foods for targeted health benefits: relating physical and physiological properties of hydrocolloids

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Hydrocolloids (mostly soluble, non-starch polysaccharides) are multi-functional natural food components or added ingredients. They deliver technological functionality to foods in the form of physical attributes like viscosity, gelation, and colloidal stability through their macromolecular behaviour. At the same time, these hydrocolloids act as dietary fibre and deliver a multitude of health benefits, including increased satiety, blood glucose attenuation after consumption of a meal, reduction in blood cholesterol levels through bile acid binding, fermentation in the colon to produce short-chain fatty acids, reduced incidence of colorectal cancers, and many other health benefits. In Canada, on average we only consume half of the recommended amount of dietary fibre (soluble and insoluble), so supplementation of beneficial fibres into foods is an important and viable health-promoting strategy as it is unlikely that enhanced consumption of whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits (our principal natural dietary sources) can make up this deficiency in the modern diet. ***The objectives of our research are to explore the relationship between rheological and aqueous properties of hydrocolloids in solution and their nutritional functionality, as assessed primarily by in vitro analyses correlated, through complementary funding and activity, with in vivo trials; and, to explore novel means of enrichment of hydrocolloids into foods to deliver health benefits. Although polysaccharide structure-physical function relationships have been studied in detail and are well known, the relationship between molecular structure and physiological functionality is not well understood. During the next phase of this research, selected hydrocolloids with demonstrated health benefits (primarily glycemia control, as assessed either from our in vivo studies or from the literature) and spanning a range of molecular structures will be characterized for both their structural properties and their rheological properties using our in vitro model to simulate gastric and intestinal degradation and dilution. The effect of food matrix and other food and dietary components will also be included. The expected significance of this will be to understand more fundamentally the relationship between molecular structure and physiological function so that appropriate hydrocolloids are targeted for enhanced utilization in foods. In addition, novel strategies for incorporation of nutritionally-relevant concentrations of hydrocolloids into food systems will be explored using the enhanced knowledge gained regarding ideal stucture/ behaviour in the gastrointestinal tract that delivers specific health benefits (i.e., parlaying nutritional functionality back into technological functionality).**