About hagfish, effective hydrogels and protein fiber enriched Tofu – an overview from our published work
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Date
2017-12-19Type
- Presentation
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
Meat is mostly healthy functionalized, structured, aligned fiber enforced, soft, tendered biological tissue and there is no doubt that man must find sustainable replacement in the nearest future. However, most of the current custom products miss at least one of the desired properties as it is also true for Tofu. Tofu has a lake in structure and completely misses the fiber enforced texture next to the red color. To overcome these shortcomings, we investigated the combination of hagfish glandular exudate with resuspended soy protein isolate (4% w/v) and with a standard soy milk. The hagfish exudate is known for its deployment in milliseconds and the entrapment of vast amount of water in an ultra-soft and dilute hydrogel. Moreover, it contains of 10 to 30 cm long keratin-like protein fibers. The combination of those two formed a more stable structure and combined all properties advantageously. Hagfish exudate was found to induce a depletion and bridging mechanism, which caused the complex system to flocculate, making “soy slime”, a cohesive and cold-set emulsion- and fibrous particle gel. The flocculation network increases viscoelasticity and substantially contributes to liquid retention by entrapping liquid in the additional confinements between aggregated particles and protein fibers. The flocculation mechanism facilitates the strait forward introduction of additional nutrients like trace metals, vitamins, or other health beneficial additives. The soy slime was cooked and it was like conventional cooked tofu, but possessed a long-range cohesiveness from the fibers. The fibrous, cold-set, and curd-like structure of the soy slime represents a novel way for a cold coagulation and fiber incorporation into a suspension or emulsion. This easy to implement mechanism paves the way towards homemade and functionalized fabrication of tofu-like structured food products. Show more
Publication status
unpublishedEvent
Subject
hagfish; tofu; foodOrganisational unit
03345 - Windhab, Erich Josef (emeritus) / Windhab, Erich Josef (emeritus)
08821 - Fischer, Peter (Tit.-Prof.)
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