Paper Number
FR5                         My Program 

Session
Special Session: Future of Rheology Speakers (Mini Session)

Title
Rheology and dispensing of real and vegan mayo: The chickpea or egg problem

Presentation Date and Time
October 21, 2025 (Tuesday) 5:05

Track / Room
Track 3 / Coronado + DeVargas

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

  1. Nikolova, Nadia (University of Illinois Chicago, Chemical Engineering)
  2. Sepahvand, Somayeh (University of Illinois Chicago, Chemical Engineering)
  3. Baier, Stefan K. (The University of Queensland)
  4. Sharma, Vivek (University of Illinois Chicago)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Nadia Nikolova1, Somayeh Sepahvand1, Stefan K. Baier2 and Vivek Sharma1
1Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607; 2The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Speaker / Presenter 
Nikolova, Nadia

Keywords
experimental methods; emulsions; future of rheology

Text of Abstract
The rheology, stability, texture, and taste of mayonnaise, a dense oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion, are determined by interfacially active egg lipids and proteins. Often mayonnaise is presented as a challenging example of an egg-based food material that is hard to emulate using plant-based or vegan ingredients. We characterize the flow behavior of animal-based and plant-based mayo emulsions seeking to decipher the signatures that make the real mayonnaise into such an appetizing complex fluid. We find that commercially available vegan mayos can emulate the apparent yield stress and shear thinning of yolk-based mayonnaise by the combined influence of plant-based proteins (like chickpea) and polysaccharide thickeners. However, we show that the dispensing and dipping behavior of egg-based and vegan mayos display striking differences in neck shape, sharpness, and length. The analysis of neck radius evolution of these extension thinning yield stress fluids reveals that even when the power law exponent governing the intermediate pinching dynamics is similar to the exponent obtained from the shear flow curve, the terminal pinching dynamics show strong local effects, influenced by interstitial fluid properties, finite drop size, and capillarity.