Functional Characteristics of Oleogel Prepared from Sunflower Oil with β‐Sitosterol and Stearic Acid

Abstract

β‐Sitosterol (Sit) and stearic acid (SA) were combined at varying ratios (w/w) and added to sunflower oil (SFO) at the concentration of 20 g/100 g oil for preparing edible fat‐like oleogel. The oleogel was characterized using an optical microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X‐ray diffractometer (XRD), differential scanning calorimeter, and texture analyzer. The oil‐binding capacity, melting temperature, and firmness of the oleogel increased with the increase in the amount of SA in the gelator combination (Sit:SA, w/w). The microscopic analysis showed that the gel network formed based on the crystallization and self‐organization of gelator molecules, and both gelators showed an independent crystalline behavior in the oleogel. In addition, the FTIR spectra showed that the gel network formed via physical entanglements and was stabilized by non‐covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding. Furthermore, XRD diffraction patterns indicated high lateral packing of molecular layers in oleogel prepared with the Sit and SA combination compared with oleogel prepared with a single gelator. On the other hand, for studying the effect of varying concentrations of gelator combinations, the Sit3:SA2 (w/w) combination was added to SFO at concentrations of 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 g/100 g oil. Specific characteristics such as the oil‐binding capacity and firmness of the oleogel improved as the concentration of the gelator combination (Sit3:SA2) increased from 10 up to 30 g/100 g oil. Therefore, it can be concluded that the saturated fat alternative oleogel can be prepared from SFO with a specific Sit and SA combination ratio and concentration.

Structure and thermal properties of β‐sitosterol‐beeswax‐sunflower oleogels

“…An emerging strategy is to design cholesterol‐lowering saturated and trans ‐fat substitutes, which cause unsaturated oils solidified with sterols to form oleogels. This challenging approach is performed by mixing sterols and oleogelators (Han et al ., ; Bin et al ., ; Yang et al ., ). The study of Marangoni () demonstrated the use of sterols and oleogelator structure oils produce components with health benefits in cholesterol‐lowing effect.…”

“…On the molecular scale, tubular structures in Triglyceride (TAG) oils are thought to be formed from sterols and oleogelators, and these tubules aggregate to form a three‐dimensional network (Bot et al ., ; Co & Marangoni, ). Although numerous different oleogelators such as γ‐oryzanol (Arjen & Agterof, ; Rogers et al ., ; Bot et al ., ; Sawalha et al ., ), lecithin (Han et al ., , ), stearic acid (Yang et al ., ), monoglycerides (Bin et al ., ) and triacylglycerols (Acevedo & Franchetti, ) have been proposed for forming phytosterol oleogels, potential oleogelators require further investigation to determine their ability to form structures containing phytosterol in oils. As an oleogelator, beeswax, which contains long‐chain fatty acid esters, can crystallise to form a three‐dimensional network entrapping liquid oil, but still studies of beeswax are relatively limited, particularly those of phytosterol oleogel preparation.…”

Preparation and characterization of lutein ester‐loaded oleogels developed by monostearin and sunflower oil

“…XRD technology can reflect the microcrystalline state of the tested material (Chi et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2017). The XRD patterns of the lutein ester-loaded sunflower oil and the corresponding oleogels with 4, 8, and 12% monostearin formed at 4°C are shown in Figure 3.…”

Optimization of the composition of fat systems of new generation

“…A number of studies are devoted to studying the effect of binary mixtures of gelling agents on the properties of fat systems. In particular, the joint effect of β-sitosterol and stearic acid on the microstructure, texture, and thermophysical properties of oleogel with the sunflower oil as dispersion medium is studied in [15]. The interaction between lecithin, monoacylglycerols and phytosterols in the oleogel composition are analyzed, respectively, in [16,17].…”