Wan is an assistant professor of animal and dairy science at UW–Platteville. Her primary research interest is in the application of non-thermal technologies for enhanced food safety and quality to achieve sustainable manufacturing goals. In addition, her research focuses on the utilization of food by-products and wastes for production of value-added ingredients. Wan’s position is funded by the Dairy Innovation Hub.
The availability of U.S. manufactured fresh cheese is limited by the short shelf-life of the product. Freezing is effective in extending shelf-life and availability of high perishable foods, but it results in severe textural degradations in high moisture cheeses (e.g., cream cheese). An extended shelf-life will reduce the food loss due to quality deterioration and increase the availability of U.S. dairy products for domestic and international market. However, there is no effective and clean-label agent to prevent the freeze-induced textural degradation in high moisture cheeses yet. We intend to identify a dairy protein-based ingredient that will inhibit ice crystal growth thus prevent or delay the freezing-induced quality deterioration. The standard splat assay is a common method utilized to characterize the ice crystal inhibition activity of ingredients which requires image capturing by the polarized light microscope and annealing under various temperature in a cryo-stage. This proposed work would enable the production of the novel dairy protein-based anti-freezing ingredients with dual function as antioxidants, which can be used to maintain the quality and prolong the shelf-life of dairy products such as high moisture cheeses.
Overall, the goal of this proposed work is to establish research capacities in the evaluation of the ice crystal inhibition activity of dairy protein-based ingredients after hydrolysis or chemical modification using the standard splat assay. This project aligns with the focus on “Enriching human health and nutrition,” as it aims to enhance food processing techniques to improve product quality and extend shelf-life.