How high hydrostatic pressure treatment modifies the physicochemical and nutritional attributes of polysaccharides?

Review article, 2023

Polysaccharides, as natural, biodegradable, biocompatible, non-allergen, and non-toxic polymers, have been utilized as potent ingredients in various food and pharmaceutical applications owing to their outstanding aptitude in stabilizing emulsions/foams as well as generating gels/films/viscous dispersions. However, apart from these unique attributes, the widespread application of polysaccharides has been challenged by some obstacles resulted from their low thermal/shear resistibility, retrogradability as well as diminished gel/paste transparency. Hitherto, to tackle these shortcomings various enzymatic, chemical, and physical modification approaches have been developed. Taking advantages from being both a physical and non-thermal approach, High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) has been a promising tool for introducing novel applications to the realm of food. HHP is a compelling approach capable of manipulating structure and physicochemical attributes of polysaccharides comparable to the conventional thermal/chemical methods. It also demonstrated a prodigious potential in enhancing the nutritional attributes of modified components either through preserving the thermo-sensitive ingredients or enhancing the resistant starch content of starches. Accordingly, the application of HHP for manipulating chemical, physical, technofunctional and nutritional characteristics of various polysaccharides has been the focus of numerous researches. The basic theory of HHP as well as its influence on different physicochemical/nutritional attributes of polysaccharides are reviewed in this study, in detail.