Impact of protein pre-treatment conditions on the iron encapsulation efficiency of whey protein cold-set gel particles

This paper investigates the possibility for iron fortification of food using protein gel particles in which iron is entrapped using cold-set gelation. The aim is to optimize the iron encapsulation efficiency of whey protein by giving the whey protein different heat treatment prior to gelation with iron. The effect of the heat treatment conditions (mild-intermediate-severe) on the iron-induced cold-set gelation process was studied to optimize the gel strength in relation to the iron concentration. Rheology was used to study the protein gel formation, and the stability of the gel particles and iron encapsulation efficiency was determined by measuring the protein and iron content at different pH. Both the iron concentration and the heat treatment conditions appear to affect the gel formation process and gel strength of the iron-induced cold-set gels. With the protein gel particles being stable at a broad pH range, the release of iron from the particles was studied as a function of time. The low release of iron at neutral pH indicated good encapsulation efficiency and capability of whey protein to keep iron bound. At low pH the release of iron increased, as is desired for bio-accessibility. In addition to differences in gel strength, the most relevant result caused by the pre-treatment of the whey protein is revealed in the amount of iron that can be entrapped per protein. It is shown that the amount of iron can be increased going from mild to severe heat treatment conditions. This suggests that the concept of using whey protein particles with iron can effectively be used to fortify food products with iron for human consumption.