The interest in plant-based products is growing in Western countries, mostly due to health and environmental issues that arise from the consumption and production of animal-based food products. Many vegan products today are made from soy, but drawbacks include the challenges of cultivating soy in colder climates such as northern Europe. Therefore, the present study investigates whether industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa) could substitute soy in the production of high moisture meat analogues (HMMA). A twin screw co-rotating extruder was used to investigate to what extent hemp protein concentrate (HPC) could replace soy protein isolate (SPI) in HMMAs. The substitution levels of HPC were 20 wt%, 40 wt% and 60 wt%. Pasting properties and melting temperature of the protein powders were characterized by Rapid Visco Analyzer (RVA) and Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC), respectively and the produced HMMA was analysed by determining the texture and colour attributes. The results showed that it is possible to extrude a mixture with up to 60% HPC. HPC absorbed less water and needed a higher denaturing temperature compared to SPI. Increasing the moisture content by 5% would have resulted in a reduction of hardness and chewiness. The lightness (L* value) was found to be significantly higher in SPI product and decreased in the mixture with higher HPC (p < 0.05).

Starch granules are an interesting stabilizer candidate for food‐grade Pickering emulsions. The stabilizing capacity of seven different intact starch granules for making oil‐in‐water emulsions has been the topic of this screening study. The starches were from quinoa; rice; maize; waxy varieties of rice, maize, and barley; and high‐amylose maize. The starches were studied in their native state, heat treated, and modified by octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA). The effect of varying the continuous phase, both with and without salt in a phosphate buffer, was also studied. Quinoa, which had the smallest granule size, had the best capacity to stabilize oil drops, especially when the granules had been hydrophobically modified by heat treatment or by OSA. The average drop diameter (d₃₂) in these emulsions varied from 270 to 50 μm, where decreasing drop size and less aggregation was promoted by high starch concentration and absence of salt in the system. Of all the starch varieties studied, quinoa had the best overall emulsifying capacity, and OSA modified quinoa starch in particular. Although the size of the drops was relatively large, the drops themselves were in many instances extremely stable. In the cases where the system could stabilize droplets, even when they were so large that they were visible to the naked eye, they remained stable and the measured droplet sizes after 2 years of storage were essentially unchanged from the initial droplet size. This somewhat surprising result has been attributed to the thickness of the adsorbed starch layer providing steric stabilization. The starch particle‐stabilized Pickering emulsion systems studied in this work has potential practical application such as being suitable for encapsulation of ingredients in food and pharmaceutical products.

Intact starch granules are a new source of particles for stabilizing emulsions, so called Pickering emulsions. Small (1-2μm) and uni-modal starch granules at various concentrations have been used in this study to investigate the stability of the emulsions, the drop size dependence of the starch concentration and the barrier properties of the stabilizing starch layer upon heating. The granules were modified with octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA) to increase the hydrophobicity. The drops in the emulsions prepared in this study were in the 10-100μm range depending on the starch concentration, and the drop size decreased with an increased amount of added starch granules. During the 8 week storage, the emulsion drops were stable to coalescence and the volume occluded by the emulsion phase was unaffected or even increased. In order to increase the barrier properties at the oil-water interface the emulsions were gently heated, which induced a partial gelatinization of the starch granules. The efficiency of the barrier was characterized by a lipolysis experiment where the activity of lipase was measured. The activity of lipase was decreased with nearly 70% compared to an unheated starch stabilized emulsion, which will be useful in applications where a controlled release of specific substances in the gastro intestinal tract is desirable