Taste masking efficacy of encapsulation of black seed oil in alginate beads

• Main Authors: Alkhatib, Hamzeh, Doolaanea, Abd Almonem, Mohamed, Farahidah, Akkawi, Muhammad Eid
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: RS Pharmacy and materia medica
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/68607/1/4IPRC.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/68607/6/IPRC%202018%20Hamzeh.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/68607/

INTRODUCTION: Black seed oil (BSO) is known for its wide range of therapeutic and prophylactic applications, but it has pungent and bitter taste. In this research, BSO was encapsulated within wet and dried alginate beads to mask the unpleasant taste of the oil. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to evaluate the palatability of the beads in terms of smell, taste, after taste, texture, and taste masking efficiency of the beads in adult volunteers. METHODS: Total of six volunteers were involved in palatability test. Five-point Likert scales were used to assess all aspects of the palatability. Volunteers were also asked to give taste score, i.e. how strong they feel the taste of the beads (from 0 to 100), considering BSO liquid as 100. RESULTS: Encapsulation in alginate beads with both form of wet and dried beads significantly improved the oil properties of smell, taste and the aftertaste feeling in addition to the ability of taste masking (p < 0.05). Dried BSO-alginate beads improved smell of BSO and the ability to mask its taste more than the wet beads. However, there was no significant difference for the taste and aftertaste feeling between each of the wet beads and dried beads (p > 0.05). Encapsulation of BSO in alginate beads did not decrease evaluation of the texture feeling in the mouth for each form of wet and dried beads (p > 0.05). On average, the wet and dried beads had a taste feeling of 58.2±31.2% and 41.2±26.5% respectively of the taste feeling of the pure BSO. The improvement in the taste of the oil was significant (p < 0.05) after the encapsulation in alginate beads for each case (wet and dried). CONCLUSION: Encapsulation of BSO in alginate beads significantly improved the oil palatability without using any flavor, sweetener or color.