Cryoprotective role of saccharides in frozen egg yolks: Water/ice tailoring effect and improved freeze-thaw stability

Freeze-induced instability of food products causes substantial losses to food manufacturers annually, and the inhibition of freeze damage is conducive to the development of frozen food industries. However, we lack sufficient information on using saccharides as cryoprotectants in frozen egg yolk systems to inhibit gelation. Therefore, we investigated the cryoprotective effects of several saccharides (sucrose, L-arabinose, xylitol, trehalose, D-cellobiose, and xylooligosaccharides) on frozen egg yolks, focusing on the water/ice tailoring effect of saccharides and the freeze-thaw stability of egg yolks. To evaluate the water/ice tailoring effects, we investigated the total water content, water activity, water state, and water distribution of egg yolks before and after freeze-thawing. We investigated the physical and structural changes in egg yolks before and after freeze-thawing to evaluate their stability. We observed that saccharides exhibited the ability to mitigate texture hardening, whitening in color, disorder in crystallinity, aggregation, and damage in protein integrity of frozen-thawed egg yolks by decreasing the freezable water content, bulk water content, and large ice crystal formation. L-arabinose was found most effective in regulating the freeze-thaw-induced egg yolk instability, followed by xylitol. Their exceptional gelation-regulating capability and low-calorie nature render them highly suitable additives for the cryopreservation of frozen egg yolks.