Mimicking natural oil bodies for stabilising oil‐in‐water food emulsions

Abstract

This paper describes a novel technique which has the potential to prevent lipid oxidation in food emulsions. This new technology emulates how nature prevents oxidative deterioration of oil within oilseeds via specific structural units called oil bodies. Oleosin, a key protein providing structural integrity and stability to natural oil bodies, was extracted from industrial canola meal and used to prepare structured oil bodies from tuna oil in combination with phospholipids. The oil bodies structured in this manner readily disperse in water, do not coalesce during storage, and withstand standard commercial conditions of pasteurisation. More importantly, they have excellent oxidative stability. Stabilisation of highly unsaturated oils via structured oil bodies is a technique that has the potential to be developed as an alternative to conventional methods such as stabilisation by addition of antioxidants and microencapsulation.