Fat stabilization techniques for the reduction of oil loss in high protein plant-based cheese
Stacie Dobson, Alejandro G. Marangoni
Abstract
Plant-based cheese is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the food industry. However, since the products lack critical functionalities and nutrition compared to their dairy-based counterparts, considerable room remains for improvement. High protein plant-based cheese containing 18%w/w protein and waxy starch was used as the base cheese formulation and demonstrated that while the texture and functionality can match that of processed dairy cheese, the excessive oil loss needed to be addressed. Oil modulation and stabilization techniques were explored here by creating oleogels with 1% w/w ethylcellulose (EC), 2%w/w beeswax (BW) or 2%w/w candelilla wax (CW) in coconut oil. Oleogels were incorporated into the cheese, where all oleogelators successfully reduced the cheese product's oil loss while maintaining the associated melting and stretch properties. The oleogels had a more significant effect on the kinetic melting of the samples. The EC-oleogel increased the elastic modulus of the cheese, while BW and CW decreased the elastic modulus, resulting in more viscous properties at lower temperatures. Further investigation into the oleogels independent from the plant-based cheese matrix was explored. The oleogels decreased the emulsion stability, suggesting emulsion stabilization is not predictive of oil stability in plant-based cheese. The oleogels also influenced the hardness and crystallinity of coconut oil, where EC-coconut oil displayed earlier crystal nucleation and its microstructure had a higher box-counting fractal dimension. Wax oil gelators had a more significant influence on coconut oil viscosity at lower temperatures than EC. Overall, oil loss modulation was achieved by changing coconut oil crystal network microstructure at low incorporation of oil gelators.