Effect of variety and maturation of cheese on supercritical fluid extraction efficiency

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) has been utilized by the food industry in many applications to extract, fractionate, and recover compounds from various food matrices. However, little research has been conducted using SFE as an alternative process for producing reduced-fat cheese. Lipids in cheeses may be selectively extracted due to the nonpolar properties of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2), without leaving residual chemicals as is the case in solvent extraction. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence on the extraction process due to cheese variety and protein breakdown by age. A Latin square design was utilized to test the extractability of lipids from Parmesan and Cheddar cheeses, aged young (9-10 months) or old (24 months). Extraction took place in a 500 mL SFE vessel using 100 g of grated cheese samples. The SFE parameters of the extraction were 350 bar, 35 degrees C, and supercritical carbon dioxide at a flow rate of 20 g/min for 55 min. Compositional analysis measured all treated samples and controls of total lipids, lipid profiling, total protein, protein/peptide analysis, moisture, ash, and pH. Cheese type was a major variable in fat extraction. The extraction in Cheddar showed an average fat reduction of 53.56% for young cheese, whereas that in old Cheddar was 47.90%. However, young Parmesan was reduced an average of 55.07%, but old Parmesan was reduced at 68.11%, measured on a dry basis. SFE extracted triglycerides and cholesterol, but did not remove phospholipids. This investigation introduces the observations of the effect of Cheddar and Parmesan varieties on SFE, offering data on the important parameters to consider in the design of SFE processes to reduce fat in cheese.