Author: Tatiana Apyonysheva, Ph, RUSAGRO support technologist (dairy industry)
WE’RE FRIENDS WITH SCIENCE
The production of healthy food is at the center of public policy as well as professionals involved in the development of innovative food technologies.
The dairy industry, in particular the cheese industry, has an important place in this task.
Cheese is a common food product with high nutritional value and good organoleptic properties. Its wide range and unique composition makes this product in demand by all segments of the population.
A great theoretical and practical contribution to the development of technologies of combined foods on dairy basis was made by Russian scientists: N.N. Lipatov, V.D. Kharitonov, A.G. Khramtsov, M.S. Umansky, L.A. Ostroumov, A.A. Mayorov, M.P., I.A. Smirnova and many others.
In recent years, the cheesemaking industry has been actively exploring the direction – the production of cheese products. It has been especially developed in the production of processed cheese. The essence of cheese products is to partially replace the milk fat composition with a milk fat substitute. This expands the raw material possibilities of the industry and the range of products produced.
The use of milk fat substitutes Solpro TM increases the nutritional value of the product, making its fatty acid composition more unique.
It should be noted that milk fat substitutes used in the manufacture of cheese products have certain requirements specified in TR CU 024/2011 and TR CU 033/2013 :
– milk-containing product with milk fat replacer – a milk processing product manufactured from milk and/or its constituents and/or milk products and/or milk by-products and non-milk components, according to the technology of production of a milk product or a milk constituent product with replacement of milk fat in an amount not exceeding 50 percent of the fat phase exclusively by a milk fat substitute and allowing the use of protein of non-dairy origin not for the purpose of replacing milk protein, with a mass fraction of milk solids in the dry matter of the finished product n
– cheese, milk-containing product with milk fat replacer produced according to the cheese technology, soft, semi-hard, hard, superhard – cheese, milk-containing product with milk fat replacer, produced by cheese technology, which have corresponding specific organoleptic and physico-chemical properties, regulated by annexes to this technical regulation.
A large complex of theoretical and experimental studies on the structure formation of cheese products with vegetable fats, scientific substantiation of their technology and improving product quality is carried out in VNIIMS (Lepilkina O.V., Sviridenko Y.Ya.), developed TU for cheese products.
The analysis of economic and technological features of production of various groups of cheese products shows that the production of milk-containing soft acid-cheese with milk fat substitute is very promising. Their advantage is the efficient use of raw materials, the possibility of realizing the cheese product without ripening, high nutritional and biological value of the product.
When modifying milk fat substitutes, compositions of palm oil with high viscosity and liquid sunflower oil with low viscosity are made by mixing in quantitative ratios that provide the required rheological properties of the fat component.
Palm oil, derived from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm (Elaeis guineebsis), accounts for the bulk of tropical oil imports. The oil from the seeds of this palm is called palm kernel oil or palm kernel oil.
Palm oil has a nutty smell and taste, red-orange color, and is rich in carotenoids and palmitic acid. It solidifies at temperatures below 30o C, so it has a thicker consistency, higher viscosity and less plasticity than milk fat. As a consequence, the use of palm oil in its pure form, even in the case of partial replacement of milk fat, causes “stiffness” of dairy products and loss of their plasticity.
The differences of palm oil in rheological properties from milk fat are primarily due to the peculiarities of its fatty acid composition. It is predominantly composed of triglycerides of high molecular weight fatty acids from C16 to C18, while milk fat contains a wide range of low, medium and high molecular weight fatty acids (from C4 to C18).
According to Russian legislation, the content of trans-isomers of fatty acids in food products should not exceed 2% (from 01.01.2018).
The use of natural vegetable oils (sunflower, rapeseed, corn, etc.) in the milk fat substitute enriches the fatty acid composition of the product due to the content of polyunsaturated fatty acids.
The main ingredients of milk fat replacers intended for use in the dairy industry and, in particular, in cheese making, are generally selected with an eye to the physicochemical properties of milk fat. The mass fraction of solid triglycerides (TTH), melting point and solidification temperature are the first things to pay attention to. This is due to the desire to achieve the same quality and properties of the cheese product as milk fat cheese.
It is important to properly select the FFA for the production of milk-containing products, as the differences in the chemical composition and structure of emulsions with vegetable fat from the natural emulsion of milk fat imply changes in the physicochemical, including rheological, properties of the fat phase of the product. This may cause not only changes in the consistency of the product, but also changes in the parameters of some technological processes of production, during which significant structural rearrangements of raw material components occur.
Preference should be given to milk fat substitutes, the basis of which is palm oil or its fractions, as all the studied fats made from palm oil, according to organoleptic parameters are most fully combined with milk fat.
The positive aspects of using milk fat substitutes derived from fat compositions of palm and sunflower oil include the fact that it increases the shelf life of the product, as it is characterized by resistance to oxidation.
NUTRITIONISTS RECOMMEND
The use of milk fat substitutes in cheese-making is also reasonable from the point of view of nutrition, because vegetable fats compared to milk fat have an increased content of polyunsaturated fatty acids, which play an important role in the prevention and treatment of lipid metabolism disorders, diseases of the cardiovascular system.
According to scientists from Denmark, regular consumption of cheese (due to the content of special fatty acids) helps to increase the population of beneficial microflora in the intestine. It, in turn, helps in keeping the fat percentage at the same level and prevents the development of obesity.
PROVEN
If you want to lose weight, nutritionists advise betting on such varieties of cheese as Parmesan, Mozzarella, Riccota, Feta, Curd.
For the production of milk-containing products made using cheese technology, Rusagro’s R&D center has developed milk fat substitutes:
Solpro 33717
Solpro 33724
Solpro 33733
Solpro 33735, which fully comply with the new quality standards adopted in Russia.
