I am most pleased to announce that Dr. Alejandro Marangoni will be visiting Utah State University on March 18th, 2010. Dr. Marangoni will be giving a presentation titled, “Structuring liquid oils using non-conventional strategies: organogels, crystal hydrates and polymers.”
Marangoni’s research has demonstrated the relationship between food microstructure and physiological response in humans. It facinating and important work. I hope you will join us for a luncheon event organized by the Center for Advanced Nutrition. Please RSVP. The luncheon and speaker talks will be held at the Junction on USU campus.
ABSTRACT
Structuring liquid oils using non-conventional strategies: organogels, crystal hydrates and polymers
Alejandro G. Marangoni
Dept. of Food Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G2W1, Canada
Increasing public concerns over excessive saturated and trans fat intake from manufactured food products has lead to the search for alternative strategies to structure liquid oils into semisolid fats without addition of large amounts of unhealthy trans and saturated fats. Surfactant-like small molecules have been shown to self-assemble into long fibrils, effectively causing oil gelation at concentrations as low as 0.5%. Phytosterols, ceramides, and 12-hydroxystearic acid have been shown to be effective organogelators. Liquid oils can also be structured by microencapsulation within multilamellar vesicles, with walls composed of monoglyceride hydrates in the alpha-gel state. The surface potential of these monoglyceride vesicles is then adjusted so as to maximize inter-vesicle interactions and the formation of a cellular solid with oil-filled cells. These monoglyceride gels have recently been proven to have excellent functional characteristics in baking applications as well as for omega-3 oil stabilization. High-molecular weight polymers such as ethylcellulose have also been successfully used by our group to gel oil in the absence of water. This development of a polymer-stabilized organogel is very promising since these polymers are widely available and are food-grade. The development of a new way to make fat exploiting the self-assembly properties of food-grade molecules is at hand.
ABOUT DR. ALEJANDRO MARANGONI
Alejandro Marangoni is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Food and Soft Materials Science at the University of Guelph.
His work concentrates on the physical properties of foods, particularly fat crystallization and structure. He has published over 200 refereed research article and four books.
He is the recipient of many awards including a 1999 Premier’s Research Excellence Award, the first Young Scientist Award form the American Oil Chemists’ Society (2000), a Canada Research Chair (2001, renewed in 2006), two Distinguished Researcher Awards from the Ontario Innovation Trust (2002), a Career Award from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (2002), an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2002) – given to the top 6 Canadian scientists from all disciplines – and the T.L. Mounts Award from AOCS in 2004.
Dr. Marangoni is a past chair of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Plant Biology and Food Science Grant Selection Committee, member of NSERC’s E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship selection committee, Editor-in-Chief of Food Research International (Elsevier), and an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society (Springer).
Dr. Marangoni has co-founded two high-technology food companies and is the co-recipient of the 2008 Guelph Partners of Innovation “Innovator of the year” award for his discovery of a zero trans, low saturate shortening alternative which could revolutionize the baking industry.
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