The use of self-assemblies of biological or synthetic biocompatible amphiphiles is a bottom-up approach with a great potential to meet the demands of improving delivery, uptake and bioavailability of food actives. Moreover, self-assemblies may play a key role to obtain colloidal structures for the design of novel functional foods. Amphiphilic self-assemblies such as micelles, liquid crystalline phases and microemulsions have been widely studied in view of applications and there are many examples of food products in the marked using them. However, the potential of self-assembled structures to deliver improved or novel functional properties has not been fully explored yet. Similarly, their decisive role in the design of colloidal dispersions with optimized properties (e.g. minimum size, enhanced shelf-life, response to different stimuli, etc.), known since long ago, has not been sufficiently developed to enhance food quality using simple conventional processes. In this communication, examples of novel self-assemblies based on polymeric micelles, cyclodextrins, etc. improving the delivery of food actives will be first considered. It will follow a description of new strategies to design food carriers from emulsions (namely, nano-emulsions and multiple emulsions). It will be shown that the presence of amphiphile molecular assemblies with zero average curvature such as lamellar liquid crystals or bicontinuous microemulsions during the emulsification process revealed to be of utmost importance in achieving minimum droplet size.
Prof. Conxita Solans csmqci@cid.csic.es
