ARS | Publication request: Trans-fat free margarine from organogel formed by a plant wax

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: June 25, 2012
Publication Date: June 29, 2012
Citation: Hwang, H., Kim, S., Singh, M., Moser, J.K., Liu, S.X. 2012. Trans-fat free margarine from organogel formed by a plant wax. IFT Meeting.

Technical Abstract: This research presents a practical method to replace a hardstock containing trans-fat and saturated fat with a small amount of a plant wax in margarine and spreads. Plant waxes were investigated for their ability to make an organogel of many different vegetable oils. Sunflower wax and rice bran wax showed the best gelation ability and formed an organogel at concentrations as low as 0.3-0.5 wt%. Margarine was prepared from the organogel and its properties were investigated. Gelation ability of a wax is significantly dependant on its purity and detailed composition. A wax ester with longer alkyl chains has significantly better gelation ability toward soybean oil than that with shorter alkyl chains indicating that the chain length of a component in a wax such as wax ester is an important factor for gelation ability. The effects of cooling rate on crystal size and firmness of a gel were also investigated.