Plant-based milk: unravel the changes of the antioxidant index during processing and storage - a review.

As a nutrient rich emulsion extracted from plant materials, plant-based milk (PBM) has been the latest trend and hot topic in the food industry due to the growing awareness of consumers toward plant-based products in managing the environmental (carbon footprint and land utility), ethical (animal well-fare) and societal (health-conscious) issues. There have been extensive studies and reviews done to discuss the distinct perspective of PBM including its production, health effects and market acceptance. However, not much has been emphasized on the valuable antioxidants present in PBM which is one of the attributes making them stand apart from dairy milk. The amounts of antioxidants in PBM are important. They offered tremendous health benefits in maintaining optimum health and reducing the risk of various health disorders. Therefore, enhancing the extraction of antioxidants and preserving their activity during production and storage is important. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive review of how these antioxidants changes in response to different processing steps involved in PBM production. Presumably, antioxidants in PBM could be potentially lost due to thermal degradation, oxidation or leaching into processing water. Hence, this paper aims to fill the gaps by addressing an extensive review of how different production steps (germination, roasting, soaking, blanching, grinding and filtration, and microbial inactivation) affect the antioxidant content in PBM. In addition, the effect of different microbial inactivation treatments (thermal or non-thermal processing) on the alteration of antioxidant in PBM was also highlighted. This paper can provide useful insight for the industry that aims in selecting suitable processing steps to produce PBM products that carry with them a health declaration.

Blends of palm kernel oil, soybean oil and palm stearin as an alternative to milk fat for frozen dessert application.

In this study, the ternary blends of palm kernel oil (PKO), soybean oil (SBO) and two types of palm stearin (PS) (PS33 and PS38) were systematically prepared and evaluated for their application as an alternative to milk fat in frozen dessert. The physicochemical characteristics namely fatty acids constituent, triacylglycerols (TAGs) composition, melting behavior, solid fat content (SFC) and microstructure were studied. All ternary blends of PKO/SBO/PS33 and PKO/SBO/PS38 had comparable microstructure to that of milk fat. However, 80/15/5 (PKO/SBO/PS33) and 80/15/5 to 80/5/15 (PKO/SBO/PS38) mixtures were found to have similar SFC as milk fat at temperature above 20 °C, allowing these ternary blends to be completely melted at body temperature. With this, 80/15/5 (PKO/SBO/PS33) and 80/15/5 to 80/5/15 (PKO/SBO/PS38) mixtures were able to provide similar meltdown and mouth feel as milk fat at room temperature. Nonetheless, fatty acids constituent, TAGs composition and melting behavior of the blends were different from milk fat. This study showed that ternary blends of PKO, SBO and PS at ratios 80/15/5 (PKO/SBO/PS33) and 80/15/5 to 80/5/15 (PKO/SBO/PS38) can be potentially used as a milk fat alternative for frozen dessert application based on its similar microstructure and SFC profile as the milk fat. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13197-022-05507-z.