食品伙伴网报道：据美国营养成分网站报道，一项新的研究表明，胶原纤维可在酸性食物的配方中替代人工合成的乳化剂。食品工业中胶原蛋白一直以蛋白质和胶原纤维的形式作为肉制品的水分和脂肪保持剂。而由天然粗胶原中提取的胶原纤维，经过脱脂、干燥、研磨作为乳化剂则具有良好的潜力，是一个值得探索的新领域。
这是由来自巴西坎皮纳斯大学的研究人员所进行的研究，他们致力于寻找天然乳化剂，以替代食品工业中人工合成的乳化剂。他除了胶原纤维以外，他们也对以下的天然材料进行了研究：酪蛋白、乳清蛋白、大豆蛋白以及明胶。
实验所使用的提取自牛皮的胶原纤维是来自巴西NovaProm食品添加剂公司，研究人员对不同pH值条件下水包油型乳液的性质做了研究试验。他们使用不同的蛋白含量，以及2种不同的乳化装置（定转子系统和高压匀浆器）。这两种乳化设备产生的乳剂粒径不同，定转子系统的大于1微米，而高压匀浆器则更大一些。试验中对稳定性、微观结构、以及乳液的流变性进行了测定。
研究结果发现，pH3.5的条件下使用定转子系统产生的乳液较稳定。
本文由食品伙伴网编译整理，目的在于传递更多的信息，内容仅供参考，以国外原文报道为准。
原文地址：http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Collagen-fibre-shows-promise-as-natural-emulsifier
原文报道：
Collagen fibre shows promise as natural emulsifier
06-Aug-2010
Collagen fibre could prove a useful emulsifier in acidic food formulations, reports a new study which suggests it could be a natural alternative to synthetic emulsifiers.
Collagen is already used by the food industry as a protein and collagen fibre as a water and fat binder in meat products. But the broader potential of collagen fibre as an emulsifier, obtain from crude collagen and defatted, dried and ground, is a new area of exploration.
Led by Rosiane Cunha, the researchers from the University of Campinas in Brazil were motivated by the demand for natural emulsifiers for use in the food industry instead of synthetic ones. Other natural candidates for food use include casein, whey protein, soybean protein and gelatine.
The team collagen fibre from NovaProm Food Ingredients in Brazil, which extracted it from bovine hides. It then set out to investigate the potential of collagen fibres in oil-in-water emulsions under different pH conditions, in formulations with different protein contents, and using two different emulsification devices, a rotor stator and a high-pressure homogeniser.
The two emulsification devices are used to deliver emulsions with different particle sizes, the former for larger than 1µm and the latter for larger. The stability, the microstructure and the rheology of the emulsions were measured.
They found that at pH 3.5 using the rotor stator phase separation and droplet size decreased with protein concentration and reduction in pH. The resulting emulsions were electromagnetically stable.
At higher pH levels there was a microscopic 3-dimensional network responsible for their stability at protein counts over 1 per cent.
Use of the high-pressure homogenization emulsification method was seen to be problematic, producing less stable and less structured emulsions. This was because the pressure disrupts the collagen fibre structure and the oil droplets. While higher pressure reduced the droplet size, it also reduced the emulsion’s viscosity.
“The results of this work showed that the collagen fibre has a good potential for use an emulsifier in the food industry, mainly in acid products,” concluded the team.
