Production of reduced-fat Majorero cheese using supercritical CO2

Abstract

Consumer trends for healthier food choices and preferences for low-fat products have increased the interest in low-fat cheese and nutraceutical dairy products. However, consumers still value flavor over attributes in food. There are several strategies to produce low fat cheese. The method reported in this manuscript is another option to the conventional cheese-making strategy to produce reduced/low fat cheese. Using CO2 as supercritical fluid (scCO2) offers an alternative to reduce fat in cheese after ripening, maintaining the initial characteristics and flavor. The aim of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of pressure (100, 200, 300 and 400 bar) of the scCO2 on the amount of fat extracted, microbial population, polar lipids profile, and microstructure of 2 varieties of goat cheese: Majorero (a PDO cheese from Spain), and goat Goudatype cheese. The amount of fat was reduced 50–57% and 48–55%, for Majorero and goat Gouda-type cheeses, respectively. Higher content of sphingomyelin and phosphatidylcholine on fat basis were found in Majorero cheese compared with the control, and also compared with goat Gouda-type cheese. The microbial population was reduced after the supercritical fluid extraction in both cheeses, and the lethality was higher as pressure increased in Majorero cheese, most noticeably reductions on lactococcus and lactobacillus bacteria. Gouda-type cheese did not contain any lactobacillus. Micrographs obtained from confocal laser scanning microscopy showed a more open matrix and whey pockets in the Majorero control cheese. This could explain the effective fat extraction and significant reduction on the microbial counts in this cheese after the treatment with scCO2. The results of this study demonstrated that the supercritical fluid extraction with scCO2 process has potential in the dairy industry and commercial applications. Majorero cheese obtained after the SFE treatment is an excellent candidate to be considered as reduced fat goat cheese, with significant lower cholesterol, but still with all the flavor and health benefits inherent to the goat milk