A paper co-authored by Professor Yuki Kimura of Hokkaido University’s Institute of Low Temperature Science has been published in Food Research International.
- Haruhiko Koizumi, Fumiya Nakano, Noritaka Oishi, Tomoya Yamazaki, Yuki Kimura, Shinji Tsuda, Satoru Ueno. Creation of lipid whisker crystals for stable oleogel preparation. Food Research International, August 2025, 116451, Volume 214
DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2025.116451
Abstract
The development of a novel manufacturing technology of oleogels is important for overcoming the serious problem of inadequate “juiciness” of plant-based meats. We have recently demonstrated that gelation occurs with the addition of only 0.5 wt% fully hydrogenated hard palm mid-fraction (FHHPMF), which forms elongated fibrous crystals in oleogels. In this paper, we reveal from the observation of a spot-like diffraction pattern using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) that elongated fibrous crystals are single crystals, i.e., lipid whisker crystals. In addition, we show through analysis of electron diffraction patterns that lipid whisker crystals are grown by elongation in the (011) crystallographic face. We also observed that such oleogels composed of lipid whisker crystals exhibit high mechanical strength and stability. These results suggest that the oleogels composed of lipid whisker crystals have strong potential to advance the technology of plant-based meats.
Keywords
Whisker; Lipid; Oleogel; Low concentration; Transmission electron microscopy
Source: Koizumi, H., Nakano, F., Oishi, N., Yamazaki, T., Kimura, Y., Tsuda, S., & Ueno, S. (2025). Creation of lipid whisker crystals for stable oleogel preparation. Food Research International, 214, 116451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2025.116451. © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.