Recent advances of 3D-printed Pickering emulsions in foods: A review

Food 3D printing enables the design of customized products with tailored nutritional profiles, intricate shapes, and desired textures. Pickering emulsions (PE) is a type of emulsion that utilizes solid particles as emulsifiers instead of surfactants, which has emerged as promising 3D food ink due to their ideal printability, superior stability, low biotoxicity, adjustable interfacial characteristics, stimuli-responsive capabilities, and excellent environmental compatibility. This review introduced the preparation methods, stabilization mechanisms, and optimization strategies of PE, as well as the 3D print in the fields of foods. Also, this work summarizes the recent applications of PE in the innovation of multifunctional 3D-printed foods including dysphagia-assisted foods, personalized precision nutrition, encapsulation and delivery of bioactive components, fat replacement, and discusses challenges and future prospects. This review could provide the advanced development of PE-based multifunctional 3D food printing systems for food science innovation.