Invited Review: Perspectives on the Basis of the Rheology and Texture Properties of Cheese

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on “food polymer science” approach and illustrates various recent examples of the way it has been used to define structure–function relationships in food products and processes and to assess and understand the effects of glass transitions and water plasticization on food quality, safety, and stability. The chapter reviews some theoretical principles from the field of synthetic polymer science that have been shown to be applicable to the studies of the glassy state phenomenon in foods and illustrates those applications by means of a broad overview focusing primarily on the most recent experimental studies by a number of groups that have been especially active in this rapidly growing field of research. The results of such studies have demonstrated the major opportunity offered by the food polymer science approach to expand not only the quantitative knowledge but also, of broader practical value in the context of industrial applications, the qualitative understanding of food products and processes with respect to (1) structure–functional property and water relationships and (2) the influences of nonequilibrium glassy and rubbery states on time-dependent mechanical and rheological properties related to quality and storage stability.

Glass transitions and water-food structure interactions

Powder mixing: Some practical rules applied to agitated systems

Process cheese is produced by blending natural cheese in the presence of emulsifying salts and other dairy and nondairy ingredients followed by heating and continuous mixing to form a homogeneous product with an extended shelf life. Extensive research on the important physicochemical and functional properties associated with process cheese and the various physicochemical, technological, and microbiological factors that influence these properties has resulted in process cheese being one of the most versatile dairy products with numerous end-use applications. The present review is an attempt to cover the scientific and technological aspects of process cheese and highlight and critique some of the important research findings associated with them. The 1st objective of this article is to extensively describe the physicochemical properties and microstructure, as well as the functional properties, of process cheese and highlight the various analytical techniques used to evaluate these properties. The 2nd objective is to describe the formulation parameters, ingredients, and various processing conditions that influence the functional properties of process cheese. This review is primarily targeted at process cheese manufacturers as well as students in the field of dairy and food science who may want to learn more about the scientific and technological aspects of process cheese. The review is limited to the relevant research associated with process cheeses as defined by the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations and does not cover imitation and substitute cheeses.

Process Cheese: Scientific and Technological Aspects—A Review

Effect of pH and calcium concentration on some textural and functional properties of mozzarella cheese.

The elongational viscosity of melting process American cheese of two commercial brands was determined by compression tests at various temperatures in the range 36–62°C. The elongational viscosity determined at low strain rates (0.01–0.04 sec-1) had little or no rate dependency in one brand and a moderate dependency in the other. Plots of log viscosity vs reciprocal of the absolute temperature indicated that both Arrhenius' and the WLF models failed to accurately account for the cheese melts temperature dependency and that the differences between the types of cheeses could be expressed in whether the plots had upward or downward curvature. Comparison with the Schreiber meltability index demonstrated that although the latter was associated with viscosity, it could not account for different flow rates at different temperatures.

Elongational Viscosity Measurements of Melting American Process Cheese

Description of normal, log—normal and Rosin—Rammler particle populations by a modified version of the beta distribution function

Melting properties of cheese

Theoretical comparison of two segregation indices for binary powder mixtures

Etude des distributions multimodales de taille, en particulier les distributions bimodales dans un grand nombre de procedes impliquant les poudres, des emulsions, et des aerosols d'aliments, de plastiques et de mineraux

L.M. Popplewell

Papers

Elongational Viscosity Measurements of Melting American Process Cheese

Description of normal, log—normal and Rosin—Rammler particle populations by a modified version of the beta distribution function

Melting properties of cheese

Theoretical comparison of two segregation indices for binary powder mixtures

Simulation of bimodal size distributions in aggregation and disintegration processes