Impact of the droplet size of canola oil-in-water emulsions on the rheology and sensory acceptability of reduced-milk fat stirred yogurt.

Unlabelled: A coarse canola oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion (dispersed mass fraction 0.1) was prepared by adding oil to whey protein hydrolysate (WPH)-citric pectin (CP) soluble complex (1% total biopolymer weight; WPH to CP mass ratio 6:1; pH 4.25) aqueous phase using a high shear homogenizer (4000 rpm, 2 min). The coarse O/W emulsion was further homogenized to obtain emulsions (E) with different mean droplet sizes (4000, 3000, 120 and 60 nm). A full-fat yogurt (YC; 26 ± 0.3 g milk fat L) was prepared from reconstituted whole milk powder (WMP, 3% milk fat) and skim milk powder (SMP, 0.01% milk fat). Reduced-milk fat yogurt (YE 13 ± 0.3 g milk fat L) variations were prepared from WMP + SMP + E, where E substituted 50% of the milk-fat contained in YC. The viscosity and viscoelastic moduli were lower for YE than for YC; the effect was more pronounced for E and E. Aroma was non-significantly different between YC and YE. A multivariate analysis showed that YE overall acceptability was linked to taste and after taste attributes and to the viscosity perceived in mouth. The loss modulus showed anti-correlation directionality with the overall acceptance. The smaller mean droplet sized YE exhibited the highest overall acceptability.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13197-022-05573-3.