17 - Developing products with modified fats

Abstract

Publisher Summary Designing products with nutritionally enhanced characteristics is a challenge. Successful products need to deliver a credible health benefit and be good products with respect to their perceivable properties. The benchmark for the perceivable properties that can be assessed by the consumer directly on usage are the generic products. Alternative attempts to provide the consumer with visible cues in healthy products have not yet been successful. The key challenge for the food scientist is to significantly change the products in their composition but to at least maintain their primary quality attributes. In practice, this means maintaining the product structure and delivering oral melting and taste sensation with a reduced fat phase that contains fewer saturated fatty acids. Additionally, it can be expected that almost all nutrition-enhancing ingredients would increase the sensitivity of the product to chemical changes. These have to be kept at a minimum. To achieve this, one either improves the raw material quality and manufacturing practices or takes chemical measures and introduces additional sequestering ingredients to inhibit oxidation.