Unrefined plant raw materials are key to nutritious food.

Food processing often overlooks nature's complexity, favouring purified raw materials. This excessive purification fosters unsustainable practices and diminishes the taste and nutritional quality of food. Given the current global environmental and health crises, we propose three food innovation principles to embrace the complexity of plant raw materials: (1) leveraging the inherent chemical, physical, biological and nutritional potential of raw materials; (2) applying robust food processes that cope with raw material complexity; and (3) designing food products from field to colon.

Inkjet-based surface structuring: amplifying sweetness perception through additive manufacturing in foods.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is creating new possibilities for innovative tailoring of food properties through multiscale structuring. This research investigated a high-speed inkjet-based technique aimed to modify sweetness perception by creating dot patterns on chocolate surfaces. The dots were formulated from cocoa butter with emulsified water droplets containing the sweetener thaumatin.

Controlling lipid crystallization across multiple length scales by directed shear flow.

The crystallization behavior of lipids is relevant in many fields such as adipose tissue formation and regeneration, forensic investigations and food production. Using a lipid model system composed of triacylglycerols, we study the formation of crystalline structures under laminar shear flows across various length scales by polarized light-, scanning electron-, and atomic force microscopy, as well as laser diffraction spectroscopy. The shear rate during crystallization γ̇ influences the acyl-chain length structure and promotes domain growth into the flow direction thereby transforming the crystallites from oblate into prolate particles.

The rheology and foamability of crystal-melt suspensions composed of triacylglycerols.

The rheology of triacylglycerol (TAG) crystal-melt suspensions (CMSs) consisting of anhydrous milk fat (AMF), cocoa butter (CB), and palm kernel oil (PKO) as function of crystallization shear rate and crystal volume fraction is investigated by in-line ultrasound velocity profiling - pressure difference (UVP-PD) rheometry. Measurements up to = 8.8% are presented.

Crystallization-Induced Network Formation of Tri- and Monopalmitin at the Middle-Chain Triglyceride Oil/Air Interface.

Crystalline glycerides play an important role in the formation of multiphase systems such as emulsions and foams. The stabilization of oil/water interfaces by glyceride crystals has been extensively studied compared to only few studies which have been dedicated to oil/air interfaces. This study investigates the crystallization and network formation of tripalmitin (TP) and monopalmitin (MP) at the middle-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil/air interface.