Preparation of Dietary Lipid Emulsions Using Laboratory Methods

Emulsification is a common unit operation in the production of different types of food, used to control the size of dispersed droplets, in turn making food homogeneous, stable, and pleasant. Similarly, in the food lab, the composition and structural elements of dietary emulsions must be controlled to enable studying their behavior in a variety of environments and contexts. For this matter, many emulsification methods exist to produce emulsions at the laboratory scale. However, good practice protocols are not widely available to choose from and use in appropriate conditions. In this chapter, we highlight the main criteria that have to be considered to choose a particular emulsification method. Then, we give detailed protocols for three widely used methods, namely, rotor-stator emulsification, high-pressure homogenization, and sonication.