Formation of Antioxidant Multilayered Coatings for the Prevention of Lipid and Protein Oxidation in Oil-in-Water Emulsions: Lycium barbarum Polysaccharides and Whey Proteins

The impact of Lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBPs) on the physical and chemical stability of oil-in-water emulsions coated by a whey protein isolate (WPI) was investigated. At pH 3.0, the anionic LBP (0.2–0.6 wt %) molecules were electrostatically deposited onto the cationic surfaces of the WPI-coated oil droplets, leading to the formation of stable multilayered emulsions containing WPI-/LBP-coated oil droplets. However, increasing the LBP concentration to 0.8 wt % led to oil droplet aggregation, which was attributed to charge neutralization, bridging flocculation, and/or depletion flocculation. For subsequent experiments, a low (0.2%) and an intermediate (0.6%) LBP dose was used to prepare the secondary emulsions, and then their physical and oxidative stability was studied during 8 days of storage at 37 °C. The presence of the multilayer WPI/LBP coatings around the oil droplets inhibited lipid oxidation (reduced levels of lipid hydroperoxides and 2-thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances), as well as protein oxidation (reduced levels of carbonyl formation, sulfhydryl consumption, molecular weight modifications, intrinsic fluorescence loss, and Schiff-base fluorescence gain). The antioxidant effects of the multilayer coatings were greater at the higher LBP concentration. These results suggest that LBP, a natural plant-based polysaccharide isolated from a traditional Chinese medicine, can be used to improve the quality of emulsion-based foods. However, the level used should be optimized to ensure good physical and oxidative stability of the emulsions.