Impregnation of Krill oil microcapsules into golden apple slices intercellular tissue

Changes in consumer’s eating patterns have promoted the employment of new processes focused in the generation of functional foods that provide health benefits to people. Lately Krill oil (KO) has gained attention due to their multiple health benefits such as enhanced brain function, reduced cardiovascular problems, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, metabolic syndrome, inflammation, cancer, etc., all of them derived from its long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and astaxanthin which is a powerful antioxidant. On the other hand, solute impregnation has been utilized for enriching food matrices with bioactive compounds, however most of them are lipophilic which difficult its addition into water rich food systems. In this article the impregnation process of Krill oil microcapsules was studied in order to enhance the cell matrix of Golden apple slices. KO was impregnated using a hypertonic sucrose solution at different process temperatures (35, 45 and 60 °C) for 180 min. The kinetics of water loss and solids gain were obtained as well as astaxanthin concentration was quantified. According to the results it was observed that the increase in temperature causes a greater removal of water and penetration of important solutes into apple tissue. When the process temperature was 60 °C, changes in the volume of the samples were more evident as well as the highest astaxanthin concentration was achieved (1.4 mg/g). Through impregnation process it’s possible to produce a new food product with potential functional properties that serves to promote a better health of consumers.