Abstract Inulin is a prebiotic ingredient that is being increasingly used in food formulations as fat replacer. Even if no significant surface activity has been reported for this natural polysaccharide, it can be used as ingredient in Oil in Water (O/W) emulsions that would benefit from its potential thickening effect of the continuous phase. In this manuscript, a well-characterized milk protein (β-lactoglobulin) was used at 0.5 % wt. content as emulsifier, while inulin was included in different concentrations from 0 to 10 % wt., in pressure-homogenized O/W emulsions (5/95). Zeta-potential measurements suggest the absence of important interactions between the protein and the polysaccharide in the continuous phase, observing an increase in the viscoelastic properties and viscosity of these pseudoplastic systems as inulin content is higher. In spite of no detecting any interfacial activity for inulin, its presence seems to favor the kinetics of protein adsorption, which might be attributed mainly to a thermodynamical incompatibility phenomena between both biopolymers. At high enough inulin content, the potential existence of protein-polysaccharide complexes become more probable, which may hinder protein adsorption, leading to a diminution of the steady-state interfacial pressure and an important reduction in interfacial dilatational modulus. The study of the droplet size distribution of the emulsions along storage time reveal how the bimodal distributions obtained keep constant, pointing out the stability of the emulsions prepared, a fact that is further supported by backscattering measurements along time. Emulsions including a prebiotic like inulin have an enormous potential in the food industry (e.g. smoothies).

中文翻译：

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由菊粉和 β-乳球蛋白稳定的益生元乳液的表征

摘要 菊粉是一种益生元成分，越来越多地用于食品配方中作为脂肪替代品。即使没有报道这种天然多糖具有显着的表面活性，它也可以用作水包油 (O/W) 乳液的成分，这将受益于其潜在的连续相增稠效果。在这份手稿中，使用了 0.5% wt 的一种充分表征的牛奶蛋白（β-乳球蛋白）。含量作为乳化剂，而菊粉以 0 到 10 % wt. 的不同浓度包含在压力均质 O/W 乳液 (5/95) 中。Zeta 电位测量表明连续相中蛋白质和多糖之间不存在重要的相互作用，观察到这些假塑性系统的粘弹性和粘度随着菊粉含量的增加而增加。尽管没有检测到菊粉的任何界面活性，但它的存在似乎有利于蛋白质吸附的动力学，这可能主要归因于两种生物聚合物之间的热力学不相容性现象。在菊粉含量足够高的情况下，蛋白质-多糖复合物的潜在存在变得更有可能，这可能会阻碍蛋白质吸附，导致稳态界面压力降低和界面膨胀模量显着降低。对乳液沿储存时间的液滴尺寸分布的研究揭示了获得的双峰分布如何保持恒定，指出所制备乳液的稳定性，这一事实得到了随时间的反向散射测量的进一步支持。