Saturated fats, which are associated with various cardiovascular problems and diseases, are not used in their development, so the result is highly beneficial for the health of consumers.

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CSIC researchers have developed oleo gels (liquid vegetable oils) that can be used as substitutes for solid fats in the production of foods such as bread and sausages. The work, published in the journals Algal Research and Carbohydrate Polymers, has been coordinated by Amparo López Rubio, a researcher at the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (IATA), and Marta Martínez Sanz, a researcher at the Institute for Research in Food Sciences (CIAL, CSIC – Autonomous University of Madrid).

Oleo gels are materials containing liquid vegetable oil, in the formation process of which gelling agents have been used to provide them with structure. In the case of the study carried out by IATA, the agents used are edible carbohydrates (agars and carrageenans, from red algae), which have made it possible to trap the oil and obtain a behaviour similar to that of solid fat, but using processes that do not damage the properties of the oil.

As Cynthia Fontes Candia, a pre-doctoral student at IATA, explains, “one of the main advantages of this patent is its application in the food industry, as it can function as a substitute for solid fats in different products, such as some types of bread and sausages. This point is very interesting, given that by not using saturated fats, the result is very beneficial for the health of consumers since the intake of saturated fats is associated with different cardiovascular problems and diseases”.

According to Fontes, “the research team that developed this patent carried out several experiments in which we incorporated oleogels as fat in the production of sausages. During the study, a tasting was carried out with 100 consumers and the product was very well accepted”.

Applications in food and biomedicine

In addition, oleo gels can serve as controlled-release vehicles, incorporating health-promoting compounds and thus providing added value. This would be the case, for example, for curcumin, a natural antioxidant dye from turmeric, which has problems of bioavailability and stability. The incorporation of curcumin into the oil gel solubilises this compound and, on the other hand, provides it with the benefits related to its activity as an anti-inflammatory or antioxidant.

This product has also been explored for biomedical applications with the aim of using it in the simulation of fat tissue for the development of imaging systems for cancer detection. A benefit of this process is that the dielectric properties of the materials can be tuned for this purpose. In addition, the technique is simple and inexpensive, which makes the patent competitive with other products on the market.