Recent Developments in Food Gels (2nd Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

Gels are polymeric colloids with viscoelastic properties and can incorporate large quantities of water, air or oil within their 3D networks; due to their unique properties, they have great potential for broader applications. Although some challenges in designing gels have been overcome due to major breakthroughs in synthetic polymer chemistry, emerging challenges, such as source renewability, cost effectiveness and sustainability, remain. Therefore, there is considerable demand for gels prepared from natural sources. Gels prepared from food biopolymers such as proteins and polysaccharides have great potential to meet these challenges because of the affordable, edible, biocompatible, biodegradable and renewable nature of their building blocks. Additionally, they possess a range of functions and physical gelation characteristics. Compared to synthetic gels, food gels play a critical role in modern food design to achieve the desired sensorial, rheological, textural and functional properties; moreover, they are used to preserve metastable food structures to increase shelf-life, replace fats, enhance satiety to reduce food intake, and aid in the design of complex food shapes through 3D printing. Further research is necessary to unravel the fabrication methods, gelling mechanisms, novel design approaches and structural/mechanical properties of food gels. Furthermore, it is important to investigate how such food gel design principles alter the rheological and tribological properties of foods to enable their quality improvement and nutrient modification without affecting their sensory properties; moreover, researchers should investigate how these gels may be used in targeted drug/bioactive delivery within the gastrointestinal tract. 

Thus, this Special Issue on Recent Developments in Food Gels will present research papers and review articles on topics including, but not limited to: 

• Food gel fabrication using novel processing methods;
• Polymerization/crosslinking methods;
• The elucidation of molecular mechanisms;
• Innovative analytical approaches to characterizing the molecular structure–function relationship of food gels;
• Food gel–body interaction.

Dr. Baskaran Stephen Inbaraj
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Gels is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• hydrogels (macrogels)/microgels/nanogels
• oleogels/aerogels/lipogels/emulgels
• multicomponent/mixed gels
• food gel networks
• natural biopolymers
• stimuli-responsive food gels
• herbal gels
• self-assembled gels
• food product development
• food fortification
• GIT uptake and release
• natural product encapsulation and delivery

• Recent Developments in Food Gels in Gels (14 articles)

Author: Karthikeyan Venkatachalam