Abstract
Food systems are very complex. They consist of many components that are incompatible with each other. Thus there are a lot of interfaces. Food emulsifiers can affect these interfaces. Consequently emulsifiers exhibit a variety of functions as well as the emulsification of oil and water. These emulsifiers function in the form of self-organized structures, such as lamellar, micellar and cubic. To understand the nature of this functionality, it is very important to know the chemical structure and physical properties of emulsifiers. It has been shown that mono-esters of sucrose fatty acid ester have a conical shape and diand tri-esters are cylindrical. These molecular shapes affect the curvature of the interfacial membranes; this is a determining factor of the resultant emulsion type. The hydrophilic moiety of polyglycerol fatty acid esters is very complex with a range of molecular weights. Some experiments have been done to clarify the molecular structure of polyglycerol esters, too. In this review, I show some examples, in which self-organized structures of emulsifiers have been identified in food systems.
