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Edible "Oleocolloids": The Final Frontier in Food Innovation?

“Oleocolloids” is a term used here to represent a broad range of oil continuous soft matter systems comprising colloids at an interface of complex fluids and phase-separated states of matter such as oleogels; biphasic colloids where water droplets or air bubbles are dispersed in an oil continuous medium (indirect emulsions and oleofoams respectively); complex colloids such as foamed oleogels and oil in water in oil (O/W/O) emulsions; and layered structural matrices embedding a large volume of liquid oil (oleofilms). Oleocolloids or oil continuous colloidal systems (Figure 1) have not received the same level of attention as water continuous systems when it comes to innovation in the food sector. The main reasons for this lack of interest include (1) the limited market needs (i.e., there is only a narrow range of food products that are based on oil continuous systems) and (2) the relative ease of historically formulating these products with the help of trans-fats (or saturated fats from natural sources) and synthetic emulsifiers (such as monoglycerides, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, etc.). However, a combination of factors including recent policy changes in United States with regard to removal of trans-fats from food products, rising concerns among consumers about the negative effect of saturated fat consumption and the ecological damage caused by palm oil usage, and, more recently, the industrial drive toward more clean-labeled products (products formulated with natural ingredients) have together provided new motivations for food material scientists to focus on innovations in formulating oil continuous systems with the aim of improving the nutritional profile of food products (transfat-free, low in saturated fats, and high in unsaturated fats), reducing the requirement of palm oil in food formulations, and developing clean-labeled products (relying on the replacement of synthetic emulsifiers with biopolymers). Although the drive for research is stronger than ever before, finding feasible solutions to these formulation issues is challenging because there are only limited food-grade materials that have the required properties and functionalities to create and stabilize oleocolloids. Moreover, the reformulated products will show some loss of functionality and may not be able to match the characteristics of conventionally formulated food products. Additionally, significant reworking of the processing steps will be required at the industrial end to successfully translate laboratory-scale research to product development. Looking at the evolution of lipid-based emulsified food products over the years, it can be seen that there has been a significant technological development in the area of reformulating conventional food products such as margarines and spreads to decrease the total fat content while maintaining the macrostructure and texture. This has been achieved by structuring the aqueous dispersed phase using biopolymers such as starch or gelatin. The reformulation concept, however, is focused on decreasing the total fat content rather than improving the fatty acid profile of the product. Consequently, the level of saturated fats in the reformulated products is still rather high. To reduce the proportion of saturated fats in food formulations, two avenues can be explored: colloidal structuring of edible liquid oils (oleogelation) and utilizing innovative dispersion technologies that rely on creating biphasic systems (e.g., complex emulsions and oleofoams, etc.). Both of these are aimed at achieving the desired texture and functional macroproperties of products without relying on the use of solid fats. However, the challenges are manifold as there is a significant lack of understanding of solute−solvent interactions in hydrophobic mediums such as edible oils. Hence, there is an urgent need for investigating the links between the molecular features and parameters such as solubility, self-assembly (process by which individual molecules form defined aggregates), and self-organization (a process by which the aggregates create higher-ordered structures) of different categories of solutes in liquid oil while gathering information about the physical (e.g., dielectric constant, ε), solvatochromic (e.g., polarity parameter, ET), and thermodynamic (e.g., Hilderbrand solubility parameter, δ) properties of solvents (i.e., edible oils). In addition, innovation in the dispersion techniques could assist in the formulation of novel complex colloids such as high internal phase emulsions, double emulsions (O/W/O), oleofoams, and oleofilms, which could be used for reformulation of existing food products or to develop new product formats. Studies done so far in this field are mainly exploratory in nature. To commercially exploit some of these potential systems for food product formulation, extensive developmental