DUGi

Estabilització d’un colorant alimentari derivat d’hemoglobina per deshidratació – encapsulació

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The high demand of food, adequate nutrition levels, as well as the decreasing on the availability of raw materials, are topics that nowadays require our attention. However, the growing concern about the increasing on pollution and the thousands of tons of waste that end up in our environment have become important matters. What can we do and how can we solve the problem of waste? Specifically, the meat industry, which is one of the industries that has a lower yield (despite its size and the amount of gross sales carried out), is the one that requires more effort in terms of reducing expenses; by renewing its methods and plant processes, waste recovery and the reuse of the leftovers, they can transform the waste into useful products for human and animal consumption. The blood that remains after slaughter of livestock is one of the products that is currently under investigation for its recovery and exploitation, thanks to its nutritional characteristics, its high content in proteins and specially because of the heme iron that it contains. The aims of this work were the characterization and the improvement of the stability of a food colorant, which had been previously developed by the Food Technology research group of INTEA. The colorant consisted on a haemoglobin-based powder derived from hygienically collected porcine blood suitable for human consumption purposes. The drying system used in this work, called spray drying, provides a powdered product that maintains an acceptable red colour during all the process but tends to worsen during storage. The encapsulation of the haemoglobin derivative, which can be achieved simultaneously to the dehydration during the spray-drying process, should allow an improvement in stability and expand the pH range at which it can be applied. Taking into consideration the results of this work, despite the variability due to the raw materials and the drying process, the obtained product was sufficiently homogeneous and showed a good colour. The product has low moisture content and water activity. The amount of ash, as well as the high percentage of proteins, suggests that the product shows a high nutritional value and can be used as a supplement in diets that are poor in nutrients