Neutrons and Food 8 at MLZ

Microemulsions are mixtures of water, oil, surfactant, and co-surfactant that spontaneously self-assemble into diverse nanostructures governed by composition and environmental conditions. Although their phase behavior has been studied for decades, designing food-grade, pH-responsive microemulsions remains a challenge. Their rational design depends on a molecular-level understanding of...

Pulses and beans are important protein sources in the current protein transition, but much of the behavior of pulse proteins in food systems is still unknown. In particular in interface-dominated materials (emulsions, foams, etc), the nanoscopic behaviour of a protein – how they fold, stretch, and lock into place – governs whether a two-dimensional protein assembly ends up as a soft gel, a...

Acid- and rennet-induced gelation are key processing steps for dairy products such as cheese and yoghurt. Milk gelation is often affected by heat treatment, which is critical for ensuring microbial safety. Understanding how heat treatment modifies gelation behavior, is essential for optimizing dairy product processing. However, the structural changes induced by heat treatment during gelation...

Dairy gels are networks formed by the aggregation of colloidal scale particles, casein micelles, in milk. This class of materials represent a well developed technology for the modulation of sensory properties, storage and transport of milk products, and such technologies may be developed for other food gels. Previously we have examined the equilibrium structure of dairy gels formed by acid...

Increasing the temperature of protein dispersions initiates the denaturation via breaking of hydrogen and disulfide bonds. These denatured proteins undergo hydrophobic attraction due to exposure of the hydrophobic sites of the protein, resulting in the formation of smaller protein aggregates, which finally leads to protein gelation by forming an intermolecular network structure at the gelation...