THIN-FILM MORPHOLOGY AND TRIBOLOGY STUDY OF MAYONNAISE

The texture of food is considered related to its rheological behavior when confined within thin films between two shearing or squeezing surf aces. Such thin-film tribological properties may represent foods under going massive grinding and deformation during mastication. The thin-fi lm tribological properties rather than the bulk rheological properties correlated with the composition (oil droplets, etc.) and texture of m ayonnaise samples. Using the Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA) technique and optical interferometry using fringes of equal chromatic order, we characterized the thin-film morphology and measured tribological and o ther interfacial properties of mayonnaise emulsions. Results revealed new properties that help differentiate between full fat, light and fat free mayonnaises. This provides an important approach to determine pr operties of such foods in thin films which cannot be deduced from bulk properties.