Effect of Milk Protein Isolate/κ-Carrageenan Conjugates on Rheological and Physical Properties of Whipping Cream: A Comparative Study of Maillard Conjugates and Electrostatic Complexes

Abstract

With increasing consumer demand for "clean label " products, the use of natural ingredients is required in the food industry. Protein/polysaccharide complexes are considered good alternatives to synthetic emulsifiers and stabilizers for formulating stable emulsion-based foods. Milk protein and carrageenan are widely used to improve the physical properties and stability of dairy food products. In a previous study, milk protein isolate (MPI) was conjugated with kappa-carrageenan (kappa-Car) in a wet-heating system through the Maillard reaction, and the Maillard conjugates (MC) derived from MPI and kappa-Car effectively improved the stability of oil-in-water emulsions. Therefore, MPI/kappa-Car conjugates were used in whipping cream as natural emulsifiers in this study, and the physical and rheological properties of whipping creams stabilized using MPI/kappa-Car MC and MPI/kappa-Car electrostatic complexes (EC) were investigated. The whipping creams stabilized with MPI/kappa-Car MC have lower rheological parameters (eta a,50, K, G', and G '' ) than those of whipping creams stabilized with MPI/kappa-Car EC. Although the overrun value was slightly reduced owing to the addition of MPI/kappa-Car MC, the stability of the whipped creams with MC was effectively improved due to enhanced water-holding ability by conjugation.