Beyond Nutrition: The Power of Sunflower to Hold Water and Oil

Nutrition matters. But we also look for the power of our sunflower protein Livalta™Sun P46 in terms of qualities like water and oil holding capacity. Why are these important? Because an ingredient with high water holding capacity can be used to improve the texture of a feed or petfood. Equally, the oil holding capacity is valuable in improving texture and juiciness of a petfood product.

We have done a test to evaluate water and oil holding capacity (WHC and OHC) of Livalta™Sun P46 in comparison to other protein rich ingredients of similar crude protein content such as pea, rice, lupin, and fava bean products.

Fig 1 Water holding (WHC) capacity as determined for Livalta™Sun P46 and other plant protein rich ingredients

Fig 2 Oil holding capacity (OHC) capacity as determined for Livalta™Sun P46 and other plant protein rich ingredients

Conclusions

• Livalta™Sun P46 can hold around 3x times of its dry weight as water, surpassing the WHC capacity of similar protein rich plant-based ingredients (Fig. 1). Thus, when added to petfood, Livalta™Sun P46 may be able to support the formation of texture and flavour binding in petfood
• Livalta™Sun P46 has comparable oil holding capacity (~180%) to other protein ingredients (Fig. 2). OHC is an important property for texture formation as well as juiciness improvement in meat analogues

More information available upon request.