Surface Topography of Heat-Set Whey Protein Gels: Effects of Added Salt and Xanthan Gum - Food Colloids: Self-Assembly and Material Science - page 483

Figure 8 ESEM surface images of heat-set whey protein gels containing (a) no xanthan
and (b) 0.05 wt% xanthan. The scale bar represents 20 m m
The presence of a very small concentration of xanthan gum makes the
protein particle gel surface much smoother. This surface smoothing effect
appears to be reasonably consistent with other microstructure observations
previously reported in the literature. Although surface exclusion or surface
deposition of incompatible xanthan could be a possible mechanism for this
smoothing behaviour, further detailed investigation is needed to prove this
hypothesis definitively. A general conclusion from this investigation is that it
should be possible to produce protein particle gels with surface mechanical
properties and functionalities designed for specific applications.