How Z Trim Works

Z Trim’s water holding capacity is a key to its effectiveness as an emulsifying, fat replacement gel.

As well, the fibers that make up the gel lack a defined or structured shape. This amorphous cellular quality is what keeps this gel from “breaking” at high and low temperatures, making it freeze/thaw and heat (up to the retort pressure point) stable, and gives it a unique capability for holding in place any and all other liquid or gel ingredients blended into it, preventing the pooling, "weeping" and liquid separating and settling occurrences common in many emulsifications.

It is these combined attributes of amorphous cell structure and water holding capability that makes Z Trim a highly effective fat mimetic, texturally. The fact that it is dietary fiber makes it functional, and can provide a value added benefit in today’s marketplace to products formulated with it. Its lack of any off flavors makes it capable of improving the nutritional profile of the world’s favorite, most established brands without changing their taste, and its lack of calories and comparatively low level of allergens give it a distinct advantage over alternative fat replacers and emulsifiers.

The fact that Z Trim powder can be rehydrated to meet a desired level of consistency give it the final advantage of versatility that enables it to excel beyond any other products in its category.

Z Trim: Specifics

Z Trim is a soluble version of insoluble fiber that is rendered, by a special process, amorphous and soluble and thus, like soluble fibers generally, capable of instant gel formation. It forms a creamy short and soft gel better than any other soluble fiber but it still retains the indigestibility and non-fermentability attributes of insoluble fiber although it represents delignified corn bran or oat hull and contains 15-20% arabinoxylan type soluble fiber (Table 1).

The “solubulized insoluble” fiber is an equivalent of traditionally known crude fiber present in the plant dietary fibers in general. Many properties relevant to food product design such as agglomeration, hydration and water management, encapsulation, tableting, emulsification, thickening, and texturization include:

1. Water-holding capacity: 10 to 25 g water per g Z trim solids
2. Emulsifying capacity with and without emulsifiers: 0.3 – 0.5X of hydrated gel
3. Foaming capacity: 25% of total hydrated gel volume
4. Foam stability: 20% of hydrated gel is stable over 28 hours at ambient temperature as examined under the microscope.

Z Trim powder, as commercially available, has moisture in a range of 5 – 8%, has 88-92% dietary fiber and a minor amount of lecithin used as a process aid during drum drying. It is an odorless and bland powder of excellent microbiological quality. It is white to off-white in color.

The amorphous nature and very high surface area of single fiber or fiber fragment along with that fiber’s hydrated dimensions implicate its gelling properties. It is this surrender of crystalline shape to an amorphous nature of the fiber that allows extensive hydrogen bonding in aqueous system necessary for gelling of cellulosic materials.

The viscosity of Z Trim gels is concentration dependent. The high viscosity of corn Z Trim as exemplified is due to its high water holding capacity (Fig. 1) that can be more than 25 g water per gram of z Trim powder. In actual food formulation schemes Z Trim gels can mimic the viscosity of most any commercial food at an appropriate concentration (Fig. 2).

Figure 1: Comparison of water holding capacity of corn Z Trim with other dietary fibers.

Figure 2: Brookfield viscosity in centipoises of various food products that can be matched with Z Trim gel viscosity at an appropriate concentration depending on the percent solids in a food composition and the nature of individual components of the total solids.