The development of bakeable foods supplemented with probiotics requires novel strategies to preserve the functionality of probiotic cells during thermal and gastrointestinal stress conditions. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the protective effect of multilayer double emulsions (W₁/O/W₂) stabilized with pectin-protein complexes on the viability of Limosilactobacillus reuteri (Lr) under thermal treatment (95 °C, 30 min), storage (4 °C, 28 d), and simulated gastrointestinal conditions. Emulsions were prepared with whey protein isolate (WPI) or sodium caseinate (Cas) as outer aqueous phase emulsifiers, followed by pectin coating and ionic gelation with calcium. All emulsions were stable and exhibited high encapsulation efficiency (>92%) with initial viable counts of 9 log CFU/mL. Double emulsions coated with ionically gelled pectin showed the highest protection against heat stress and gastrointestinal conditions due to the formation of a denser layer with lower permeability, regardless of the type of protein used as an emulsifier. At the end of storage, Lr viability exceeded 7 log CFU/mL in cross-linked pectin-coated microcapsules. These microcapsules maintained >6 log CFU/mL after thermal treatment, while viability remained >6.5 log CFU/mL during digestion and >5.0 log CFU/mL after consecutive heat treatment and simulated digestion. According to these results, the combination of double emulsion, multilayer formation and ionic crosslinking emerges as a promising microencapsulation technique. This approach offers enhanced protection for probiotics against extreme thermal and digestive conditions compared to previous studies that only use double emulsions. These findings support the potential application of this encapsulation method for the formulation of functional bakeable products.

The development of bakeable foods supplemented with probiotics requires effective strategies to preserve the functionality of probiotic cells during thermal and gastrointestinal stress conditions. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the protective effect of multilayer double emulsions (W1/O/W2) stabilized with pectin-protein complexes on the viability of Limosilactobacillus reuteri (Lr) under thermal treatment (95 °C, 30 min), storage (4 °C, 28 d), and simulated gastrointestinal conditions. Emulsions were prepared with whey protein isolate (WPI) or sodium caseinate (Cas) as outer aqueous phase emulsifiers, followed by pectin coating and ionic gelation with calcium. All emulsions were stable and exhibited high encapsulation efficiency (> 92%) with initial viable counts of 9 log CFU/mL. Double emulsions coated with ionically gelled pectin showed the highest protection against heat stress and gastrointestinal conditions due to the formation of a denser layer with lower permeability, regardless of the type of protein used as an emulsifier. At the end of storage, Lr viability exceeded 7 log CFU/mL in cross-linked pectin-coated microcapsules. These microcapsules maintained > 6 log CFU/mL after thermal treatment, while viability remained > 6.5 log CFU/mL during digestion and > 5.0 log CFU/mL after consecutive heat treatment and simulated digestion. These findings support the application of multilayer double emulsions as effective carriers for probiotic delivery in the formulation of functional bakeable products.

Purpuse: Fodder yeast is obtained in an aerobic fermentation process where foaming is a major problem to be solved. In this article, the antifoam property of crude and purified filter cake oil is evaluated in order to use this residual as an alternative to replace the import of commercial antifoam agents and to reduce the production costs of fodder yeastMethod: Knock down test and the comparisons with two commercial antifoam agents were done. Blackstrap molasses medium at 20 and 40 g/L of total reducing sugar was used. All products were studied in their pure form and commercial ones also in dilutions 1:2 and 1:5 v/v. Hansen's solubility parameters (HSPs) to analyze the affinity of each defoamer for yeast were determined.Results: It was obtained the crude and purified filter cake oil showed similar behavior to commercial defoamers with an immediate antifoam effect, removing between 40 and 60% of the initial foam at both sugar concentrations in the first 5 minutes. The regression model showed purified filter cake oil has the greatest knockdown effect (Ca = 55.85 and 74.32) and with greater foam suppression stability the commercial defoamer Quimifoam Máster (C_b = -0.69 and -1.38). Ra values obtained in HSPs test, indicated the affinity of defoamers to the medium. Conclusion: Purified filter cake oil is an effective product for its use as an antifoam with the best knock down effect for both concentrations of sugars in the medium. The determination of HSPs corroborates the effectiveness of this product to suppress foam.

Incorporating probiotics into baked goods remains challenging due to the severe thermal stress during processing, which affects cell viability. Non-thermal technologies induce adaptive responses that enhance microbial tolerance to processing and gastrointestinal stresses. This study evaluated the use of pulsed electric fields (PEF) as a pretreatment to improve the resistance of Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus to baking temperatures in oat biscuits. Cells in the logarithmic phase (≈10⁹ CFU/mL) were treated with two electric field intensities (2.0 and 3.5 kV/cm), three pulse durations (100–300 µs), and three pulse numbers (5–15). Viability, sublethal damage, and survival after moderate heat exposure (60 °C, 15 min) were evaluated to identify sublethal conditions for oat biscuit production. Low-intensity PEF treatments (2.0 kV/cm; 100–200 µs; 5–15 pulses) improved the heat tolerance of L. rhamnosus. Principal component analysis was used to integrate viability, sublethal damage, and survival after heat exposure, thereby allowing the identification of the pretreatment conditions. Selected PEF pretreatments increased resistance to lethal heat (95 °C, 15 min), raising D95°C values from 1.27 to 3.84 min and improving post-heating counts by up to 3 log CFU/mL. These results suggest that sublethal PEF induces membrane-level adaptive responses associated with enhanced thermal resistance. PEF-treated cells were freeze-dried with inulin prior to incorporation into biscuit dough. During baking (180 °C, 15 min), PEF pretreatment increased survival by ~3 log units and maintained counts above 6 log CFU/g. PEF-treated cells also showed improved persistence during simulated INFOGEST digestion, indicating protection beyond thermal stress.