Reduced-Salt Emulsion Technologies (Re-SET)

盐摄入量增加与心血管疾病（CVD）和中风有关，这两种疾病都给卫生服务带来了巨大负担，并降低了生活质量。英国心脏基金会估计，英国用于心血管疾病和中风的医疗保健费用高达170亿英镑（2006年）。低盐食品和零食可以帮助缓解这种压力，但消费者仍然希望获得愉快的饮食体验。这就要求食品的配方“无形地”降低了盐的含量，口感和“方便”与全盐食品相似。人们曾尝试减少添加到食物中的盐晶体（<25微米）的大小，但不幸的是，这会导致不必要的盐“爆裂”。基于壳技术的低盐健康食品和零食可以克服这个问题，因为这些壳稳定的乳液结构可以用来调节盐的释放，从而调节盐的感知/“咸味”bb0。尽管如此，由于严重的加工和稳定性问题，这种结构技术在干（半干）食品中的应用尚不存在；(a)加工问题：由于壳面易碎的性质，这种结构难以加工。要想将这些精致的结构应用到食物表面，还需要进一步的创新。(b)稳定性问题：含盐乳液受到较大的渗透压和化学势差异的影响，这往往会使这些结构不稳定。在干粮中加入这些含盐乳剂加速了不稳定过程。伯明翰大学的研究证据表明，甘油三酯壳的稳定渗透分离是可能的，这些壳可以在不同的温度和速率下融化，因此有可能在低盐浓度下调节盐的感知。该项目将提供配方设计规则和加工路线，以生产壳稳定的油包水乳剂，用于开发低盐健康休闲食品。拟议的项目计划经过精心设计，以快速识别用于原型制造的潜在壳稳定乳化“技术”，扩大生产这些技术的工艺，并最终对制造的原型进行感官评估，并确定它们是否可以提供可接受的减盐零食。通过对表面化学的理解，在工艺和配方工程、测量和表征方面的进步，项目团队提供了独特的协同产品，将催化不同的思维、方法并为创新铺平道路。拟议的研究项目涉及伯明翰大学（UoB）和百事公司。从这次合作中开发的技术和获得的理解将使许多新的应用和食品进入市场，该项目的知识产权也有望在商业上具有创新性Strazzullo等人。BMJ 2009;339年:b4567;[10] Frasch-Melnik et al., 2010。[J] .食品工程学报，2004,19(3):437。

Increased salt intake has been linked to cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and stroke [1], with both illnesses placing ahuge burden on health services and lowering life quality. The British Heart Foundation estimated that UK health care costsfor both CVD and stokes to be >£17bn (2006). Low salt foods and snacks can help ease this strain, however consumersstill expect a pleasurable eating experience. This requires formulation of food products of "invisibly" reduced salt, similar intaste and "convenience" to their full-salt counterparts. Reducing the size of salt crystals (<25 microns) added to food hasbeen attempted but unfortunately provides an unwanted saltiness "burst". Reduced-salt healthy foods and snacks based onshell technologies could overcome this as these shell-stabilised emulsion constructs can be used to modulate salt releaseand thus salt perception/"saltiness" [2].Nonetheless uses of such structuring technologies in dry (semi-dry) foods are absent due to serious processing andstability issues; (a) Processing issues: due to the fragile nature of shell interfaces, such structures are difficult to process.Further innovation is required to be able to apply these delicate structures onto the food surface. (b) Stability issues:emulsions containing salt are subject to large osmotic pressure and chemical potential differences which tend to destabilisethese structures. Adding these salt-containing emulsions into/onto dry foods accelerates the destabilisation process.Evidence from research at the University of Birmingham suggests that stable osmotic separation with triglyceride shells ispossible [2] and these shells can be constructed to melt at different temperatures and rates, thus giving potential tomodulate salt perception at much lower salt concentrations. This project will deliver both the formulation design rules andprocessing routes in order to manufacture shell-stabilised water-in-oil emulsions for the development of salt-reducedhealthy snack foods. The proposed project programme is carefully designed to quickly recognise potential shell-stabilisedemulsion "technologies" for use in prototype manufacture, to scale-up the processes to produce these and finally tosensorially evaluate the manufactured prototypes and establish whether they can deliver acceptable salt-reduced snackfood products.The project team provides a unique and synergistic offering which will catalyse different thinking, approaches and pavethe way for innovation, through understanding of surface chemistries, advances in process and formulation engineering,measurement and characterisation. The proposed research program involves the University of Birmingham (UoB) andPepsiCo. The technology developed and understanding gained from this collaboration will enable many new applicationsand foods to reach the market, with IPR from this project also expected to be commercially innovative.[1] Strazzullo et al. BMJ 2009; 339:b4567;[2] Frasch-Melnik et al., 2010. J Food Eng. 98: 437.