Organogelator that can turn vegetable oil into a gel with a small quantity has drawn a lot of interests as a potential alternative for saturated fats and trans fat-containing solid fats in margarine and spread products.  However, it is not practically used in those products yet.  This research shows that organogels obtained from plant wax and soybean oil could be utilized to produce trans-fat free margarine and spread products.  Other healthy oils including sunflower oil, peanut oil, sesame oil, walnut oil, olive oil, canola oil, corn oil, almond oil, pumpkin seed oil, flaxseed oil, safflower oil, and grapeseed oil were also tested in this research. Sunflower wax, rice bran wax, and candelilla wax were evaluated for their gelation abilities toward these healthy oils.  Margarine samples were prepared with 80:20 (w/w) oil phase and water phase, emulsifiers and other ingredients in which the oil phase is the organogel formed by sunflower wax and vegetable oil. Properties including firmness, spreadability, and drop melting point of the margarine samples were determined.  An attempt was made to find the correlation between the fatty acid composition and the properties.  This research reveals that the firmness of commercial spreads could be achieved with 1-2% of sunflower wax in the oil phase of the margarine sample.

Margarine from organogel of healthy vegetable oils and plant wax

246th National Meeting (2013)

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