INFORM February 2025 Volume 36 (2)

14 • inform February 2025, Vol. 36 (2)

Synchrotron X-ray how structured oils are digested Savannah Mitchem

diffraction unveils

To respond to evolving consumer demands and government regulations, the food industry is con tinually tasked with balancing health, taste, convenience and sustainability in their products. A per sistent challenge is to develop alternatives to traditional solid fats—especially trans and saturated fats—which are linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity and other non-com municable diseases when consumed in excess.

At the same time, trans and saturated fats in foods provide benefits such as shelf stability, satiety and desirable flavors and textures that are difficult to recreate. Oleogels—liquid oils that have been solidified using structural agents—present a promising avenue for replacing traditional solid fats. They are rich in unsaturated fatty acids but maintain internal crystalline networks that keep them structured like a solid at room temperature. These character istics could enable oleogels to reproduce the physical and sensory properties of solid fats without many of their associated health risks. Over 20 years of research into oleogels has demonstrated their poten tial for use in various foods, including baked goods, spreads, meat products and more. However, despite growing interest in oleogels for food applica tions, they are not a singular solution for solving every challenge associated with solid fats. For example, lipids are the most calorie dense macronutrient, so while oleogels may lack saturated fat, they can still have caloric content comparable to solid fats. “Currently, oleogels do not address the risk of obesity because they still lead to high energy intake,” said Tiago C. Pinto, a doctoral researcher in the Food Materials Science Research Group at the University of Helsinki, Finland, who is working under Fabio Valoppi. “We are working to tailor the digestibil ity of oleogels to reduce energy intake during digestion. In order to do that, we first need to understand what happens to them during the digestion process.” SHEDDING LIGHT ON LIPID DIGESTION Pinto and his colleagues are exploring structured emulsions as an approach to tailoring oleogel digestibility. Oil structuring is a highly complex process, and due to the number of potential combinations of oils and structuring agents that can comprise these materials, there is much work to be done to understand and manipulate the behavior of oleogels and engineered

• While oleogels offer a healthier alternative to trans and saturated fats, they are often just as calorie dense. • Structured emulsions show potential to modulate oleogel digestibility in order to reduce overall energy intake. • Synchrotron X-ray diffraction enables highly-detailed investigation of structural changes within oleogel emulsions during digestion. • A research group in Finland is using synchrotron light to characterize engineered emulsions during in-vitro digestion, laying the groundwork for optimizing oleogels for healthier food formulations.