Programmed emulsions for reduced levels of salt or sugar in liquid and semi-liquid foods

该项目将迅速提供配方工程路线，以减少酱汁、调味品、汤和奶昔中的盐或糖。它还将提供非化学改性淀粉作为食品乳化剂。其新颖之处在于对配方成分之一淀粉进行编程，以达到双重目的：使用消费者可接受的成分来稳定产品和体验味道。有一系列新的策略来减少干/固体食物中的盐和糖的含量，但由于盐和糖在水中的高溶解度，这些策略在液体食物中并不实用。因此，该项目专门针对液体和半液体食品中的盐或糖水平，在这些食品中添加盐或糖主要是为了味道而不是保存，这对食品工业来说是一个特别的挑战。我们假设，这些不受欢迎的营养成分的配方水平可以在不影响味道的情况下通过封装的方式降低，而在保质期内，传递载体保持稳定，它们在口腔中分解，靠近味觉受体，将味道传递到可以感知的地方。目前，盐或糖通过大部分食物传递到味觉感受器，味觉强度与浓度有关。在味觉感受器附近放置足够高浓度的盐或糖，可以在不影响味觉的情况下降低它们在吞咽的大部分食物中的总体浓度。建议的方法是使用油包水乳液（wow/s）来封装盐或糖，盐或糖将被淀粉基外壳保护。当与唾液接触时，这种淀粉会被分解，从而在口腔味觉感受器附近释放出高浓度的盐或糖。现在的乳剂是油包水（o/w）乳剂，油滴中充满了水滴。虽然wow/s已经被讨论了一段时间，但它们很难稳定下来，从而保持较长的保质期，因此在商业食品或饮料中找不到。所发生的事情被称为排空：内部的水通过油扩散到外部的水相中，慢慢地将wow转化为简单的o/w。已经有不同的方法来减少空化，但对于这个项目来说，唯一实际相关的方法可能是通过外部o/w界面的颗粒稳定。最近已经证明，OSA淀粉（一种化学改性淀粉）是一种很好的乳化剂。据报道，小颗粒的天然淀粉也显示出乳化能力，尽管我们自己的尝试显示出有限的稳定性。可以预见的是，原生淀粉不会在广泛的乳剂食品和饮料中广泛发挥作用。消费者不希望对食品成分进行化学改性，因此我们将探索通过挤压加工和碾磨来对淀粉进行物理改性，使其成为乳化剂，并在食用过程中分解盐或糖在味觉感受器附近的传递。由于唾液淀粉酶将是味觉释放触发器，因此在开发这条减少盐或糖的途径时，将考虑个人或消费者群体的淀粉酶水平。我们有概念验证的感官数据，表明基于商用OSA淀粉配方的拟议技术的潜在成功。乳状液稳定性良好，但未优化产品贮藏的包封效率。尽管在加工食品中使用聚甘油聚蓖麻油酸酯（PGPR）有局限性，但在大多数研究中，内部水相是用聚甘油聚蓖麻油酸酯（PGPR）稳定的。在这项研究中，稳定内部水相的替代方法，例如，通过脂肪晶体网络（已知是成功的），极疏水性淀粉或其他不需要化学修饰的食物颗粒将被应用。

This project will deliver rapidly a formulation engineering route to salt or sugar reduction in sauces, dressings, soups and milk shakes. It will also provide non-chemically modified starches as food emulsifiers. The novelty lies in programming one of the formulation ingredients, starch, for dual purpose: product stabilisation and taste experience using ingredients acceptable to consumers.There are a range of novel strategies to reduce salt and sugar content in dry/solid foods, but these are not practical in liquid foods due to the high solubility of salt and sugar in water. Therefore this project specifically targets the salt or sugar levels of liquid and semi-liquid foods where salt or sugar is primarily added for taste rather than preservation, a particular challenge for the food industry. We hypothesise that the formulation levels of these undesirable nutrients can be reduced without taste compromise by encapsulation in a fashion that, while the delivery vehicles remain stable during shelf life, they break down in the mouth, close to the taste receptors to deliver the tastant right where it will be perceived. Currently salt or sugar is delivered to the taste receptors through the bulk of the food and taste intensity correlates to concentration. Delivery of pockets of sufficiently high concentrations of salt or sugar near the taste receptors will enable lowering their overall concentration in the bulk of the food that is swallowed without contributing to taste. The proposed approach is to use water-in-oil-in-water emulsions (wow/s) to encapsulate the salt or sugar, which will be protected by a starch based shell. This starch will be designed to break down when brought into contact with saliva, thus releasing high concentrations of salt or sugar close to taste receptors in the mouth.wow emulsions are oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions where the oil droplets are filled with water droplets. Although wow/s have been talked about for some time, they can be very difficult to stabilise to give a long shelf life and therefore are not found in commercial foods or drinks. What happens is termed emptying out: the internalised water diffuses through the oil into the external water phase slowly converting the wow into a simple o/w. There have been different approaches to reduce emptying out, but perhaps the only practically relevant method for this project is through particle stabilisation of the external o/w interface. This has recently been demonstrated to be possible with OSA starch (a chemically modified starch) that is well known to be a good emulsifier. Native starches with small granules have also been reported to show emulsifying ability although our own attempts have shown limited stability. It can be predicted that native starches will not be widely functional across the broad spectrum of emulsion based foods and drinks. Chemical modification of food ingredients is not desired by consumers, so we will explore physical modification via extrusion processing and milling to program starches as emulsifier & for break down delivery of salt or sugar near the taste receptors during consumption. As salivary amylase will be the tastant release trigger, individuals' or consumer groups' amylase levels will be considered in developing this pathway for salt or sugar reduction.We have proof-of-concept sensory data indicative of the potential success of the proposed technology based on formulating with a commercial OSA starch. Emulsion stability was excellent although encapsulation efficiency was not optimised for product storage. The internal water phase was stabilised with polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR) as in most researches despite the limitations for use of PGPR in processed foods. In this research alternative approaches to stabilise the internal water phase, e.g., by a fat crystal network (which is known to be successful), extremely hydrophobic starches or other food particles not requiring chemical modification will be applied.