Oil Structuring for improving healthy and sustainable diets

The development of a sustainable food system is the biggest challenge that the modern food industry has to face. This comes from the necessity to guarantee a safe future for new generations and it is the reason why EU, with its recent publication European Green Deal, claims the need to a carbon neutral Union by 2050, recognizing the inextricable link between healthy people, healthy society, and healthy planet. Based on these considerations, the EU is asking for actions and strategies to promote a sustainable food consumption. It is a matter of fact that current food consumption patterns are unsustainable from both health and environmental points of view. Food scientist and technologist are so required to keep in consideration these aspects in developing new foods (European Commission, 2020). Over the last decade, overweight and obesity have reached critical level all over the world, increasing the risks of life-threatening diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer (European Commission, 2020). A key strategy to fight this problem is the promotion a more plant-based diet with a balanced intake of saturated/unsaturated lipids. For these reasons, the nutritional improvement of lipid-containing foods has gained more and more interest The most promising strategy to reach this goals is the oleogelation, technique that allows the conversion of liquid oils into solid-like materials (Patel & Dewettinck, 2016). Up to now, a series of oleogelators has been studied in literature, including low-molecular weight compounds (e.g., monoglycerides, waxes, phytosterols, fatty alcohols) and polymeric high-molecular weight molecules, such as polysaccharides and proteins (Manzocco et al, 2017; Patel & Dewettinck, 2016; Plazzotta et al, 2020). However, the research of novel oil structuring approaches is still highly demanded. Currently there are a significant number of papers dealing with the possible applications of oleogels in different foods as fat mimetics, such as bakery products, ice-cream, chocolate based products (Adili et al, 2020; Demirkesen & Mert, 2020; Patel et al, 2020; Zulim Botega et al, 2013). In these products, the inclusion in the formulation of oleogels allowed at the same time the reduction of saturated fats and the increase of unsaturated and polyunsaturated ones, while maintaining good sensory and technological performances. Beside their potential use as fat-replacers, oleogels have been recently proposed as functional components able to modulate lipolysis as well as the delivery of bioactive lipophilic molecules (Calligaris et al, 2020; Osullivan et al, 2017). It has been shown that the inclusion of lipophilic molecules into gelled oils could improve their stability during storage as well as during the passage through the gastrointestinal tract, improving their bioacessibility. From the other side, oleogelation is under study for the possibility to modulate lipolysis during digestion. Both these aspects could open new horizons for the potential of oleogels as innovative tool to improve food health functionality as well as energy management deriving from lipid ingestion (Calligaris et al, 2020; Tan et al, 2017). Thus, innovation in the field of food oleogelation is today highly demanded in the attempt of creating the ideal oleogel that not only has good performances in foods but can bring additional benefits to human health and/or to the environment. In fact, there is still the need of developing sustainable oleogelation strategies based on the exploitation of innovative food processes and/or the structuring ability of biopolymers deriving from food waste.