Rheology of cream-like emulsions prepared with soybean milk and low trans vegetable fat

Abstract

The objective of this work was to study the effect of fat globule size and fat content on the rheological behavior of oil-in-water emulsions prepared with soybean milk, sunflower oil and low trans vegetable fat (LTF). Emulsions were prepared with 40 % w/w lipid phase (containing different proportions of LTF) and three different homogenization methods were used in order to obtain different globule sizes. Emulsions were subjected to controlled magnetic shaking until an increase in thickness. Partial coalescence was observed in all systems containing solid fat, which gave a rheopectic behavior and an increase in the viscoelastic parameters of the emulsions. Smaller particle sizes required higher shaking times to produce an increase in thickness, even though this did not lead to different final values of the viscoelastic parameters. The highest partial coalescence degree was observed at 50 % LTF in lipid phase, but the highest final viscoelastic parameters after shaking were observed at 100 % LTF in the lipid phase. The rheological behavior of these emulsions indicates that they could be a potential vegetable substitute for traditional dairy creams.