CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

texture, sensory and nutritional properties of foods. Sodiumcaseinate (NaCas) is a well-used ingredient because of its good solubility and emulsifying properties and its stability during heating. One ofmost significant aspects of any food emulsion is its stability.Among themethods used to studyemulsion stability itmay bementioned visual observation, ultrasound profiling, microscopy, droplet size distribution, small deformation rheometry, measurement of surface concentration to characterize adsorbed protein at the interface, nuclear magnetic resonance, confocal microscopy, diffusing wave spectroscopy, and turbiscan. They have advantages and disadvantages and provide different insights into the destabilizationmechanisms. Related to stability, the aspects more deeply investigated were the amount of NaCas used to prepare the emulsion, and specially the oil-toprotein ratio, the mobility of oil droplets and the interactions among emulsion components at the interface. It is known that theamount of protein required to stabilize oil-in-wateremulsions depends, not only on the structure of protein at the interface, and the average diameters of the emulsion droplets, but also on the type of oils and the composition of the aqueous phase. Several authors have investigated the effect of a thickening agent or of a surface activemolecule. Factors such as pH, temperature, and processing conditions during emulsion preparation are also very relevant to stability. There is a general agreement among authors that the most stable systems are obtained for conditions that produce size reduction of the droplets, an increase in viscosity of the continuous phase and structural changes in emulsions such as gelation. All these conditions decrease the molecularmobility and slow down phase separation.