| Abstract: | Strategies for the substitution of dietary fat. The increasing incidence of overweight and obesity in Europe and North America has to be reduced by lowering the energy and fat consumption. The supply of low-fat products is helpful to decrease the individual fat intake. A simple reduction of dietary fat content, however, is often combined with a loss of sensoric and technological food quality. Therefore, it is necessary to substitute dietary fat either by fat analogs or by fat replacers (also called fat mimics of fat mimetics). Fat analogs having no or a very low energetic value, e.g. special triglycerides, carbohydrate polyesters, retrofats, long-chain ethers, are fat-like in their functional properties (appearance, hydrophobicity, temperature behaviour). Fat replacers having lower energy values than dietary fat are represented by microparticulated proteins and carbohydrates, e.g. inulin, starch, dextrins, water-binding and jelling substances. They predominantly simulate the sensoric, but not the whole range of other functional properties of dietary fat. Due to their toxicological safety and sensoric quality, however, their importance as substitutes for dietary fat will increase. |
