Effect of High Pressure Homogenization Treatment on the Rheological Properties of Citrus Fiber/Corn Oil Emulsion

BACKGROUND: Citrus fiber is a main component in the peel of citrus and contains natural dietary fiber. It is often used as a functional additive to improve the texture or nutritional property of food. It is also widely used to reduce the content of absorbable fat in sausages and other meat products, and to improve food stability as an emulsifier. In this research, the dynamic rheological properties (linear and nonlinear) of citrus peel fiber/corn oil (CF/CO) emulsion system under high pressure homogenization (HPH) treatment was investigated. RESULT: Rheological results illustrated HPH treatment significantly increased the apparent viscosity of emulsion, reduce the activation energy of emulsion and distinctly improve the viscoelasticity of emulsion. Meanwhile, HPH treatment increased the linear viscoelastic region of sample, and the behaviour of emulsion converted from strain thinning (without HPH treatment) to weak strain overshoot (with HPH treatment). Lissajous curves indicated the viscosity of sample increased first and then decreased with strain increasing and the third harmonic contribute much more to the first harmonic compared with the fifth harmonic. Chebyshev stress decomposition revealed that, as strain increased, the samples with HPH treatment showed internal-cycle strain hardening behavior first, then turned to internal-cycle softening behavior CONCLUSION: HPH treatment can significantly improve the processing performance of CF/CO emulsion as well as the stability against large periodic oscillations in food processing. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.