The gap between food gel structure, texture and perception

This paper summarizes the current status of research into the structure, texture and perception of food gels based on proteins and polysaccharides. The first part of this paper deals with mechanisms of biopolymer gelation. In the second part the effects of post-gelation phenomena are covered, demonstrating that it is of importance for the quality of food to realise that gels are metastable systems that continue to evolve after the initial gelation process has taken place. Phase separated networks are presented in the context of the huge interest from the industrial perspective and a short overview of physical mechanisms is given in a third part. In the final part examples from the dairy industry and flavour perception are presented.

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