Hydrocolloids – significance in food and seafood processing

Hydrocolloids are defined as a colloidal system in which colloidal particles or hydrophilic particles are dispersed in water. They include large, heterogenous group of polymeric substances comprising mainly of polysaccharides and some proteins. They are hydrophilic in nature and tend to get swollen when present in the matrix. Hydrocolloids, with their ability to swell, play a pivotal role in altering the physical properties of a solution by promoting gelation, thickening, emulsification, stabilization and coating. They can exist either as a gel or liquid or solid. Hydrocolloids can either be reversible or irreversible in nature (Pirse and Hafezi, 2023).