ABSTRACT
Nowadays, microstructure and dynamical behavior of viscoelastic food systems have attracted considerable attention of food designers and developers, and attempts have been made to relate the microstructure of food systems to their bulk, or macroscopic, properties and stability (i.e., particles forces/interactions). Knowledge and characterization of particle size distribution, microstructure, and rheological properties and their changes in complex fluids, such as colloidal aggregates, surfactant solutions, and polymer blends, are of fundamental importance to better understand, create, and control structure formation in soft materials (Moschakis 2013). In food materials, the changes occurring during colloidal destabilization may have important implications on the structural characteristics of the final matrix, and thus impact the final texture, sensory perception, and consumer acceptance of the food (Alexander and Corredig 2013). A typical manifestation of formulation instability in a colloidal suspension, for example, is an increase in particle size due to the aggregation of individual compounds or particles. As the particle size increases, the efficacy of particle dispersion is diminished, primarily due to the decrease in the active surface area (Mattison et al. 2003).
