Sustainable Food Colloids

About

My utmost concern is to blaze the way for our society into sustainability and equality.

I am a scientist with more than 6 years experience in food technology specialized in sustainable food colloids and protein functionality. My vision is to find innovative solutions with novel scientific approaches for vibrant food questions. I work at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. Here, I established topics related to food materialscience and -technology and build the sustainable foods colloid group and food science lab. I am motivated to contribute to a sustainable and healthy future, and I enjoy working in a interdisciplinairy and equality embracing team with industrial collaborations.
In my current position, me and my team develop and approve methods to understand the function of novel and sustainable proteins in food colloidal systems via neutron and X-Ray scattering (microCT, SANS, SAXS, NSE).

Research Topics

  • Plant-based food colloids
  • Food colloid systems

Learn more about my research topics

Contact

Theresia Heiden-Hecht

JCNS-4

Building Garching-UYL / Room 534

+49 89/158860-841

E-Mail


Sustainable Food Colloids

Food colloids are part of everyone's life: milk, yogurt or cheese. An evolution of various social and environmental reasons stresses the importance to integrate more sustainable and plant-based food colloid options into the human nutrition.

Plant-based food colloids represent a scientific challenge. These colloidal systems have been extensively studied in the past decade, but the function and potential of sustainable plant proteins in complex colloidal systems is still not fully understood. X-ray and neutron scattering techniques offer a tremendous potential to answer a lot of important research questions concerning organization, shape, size, aggregation state, and motion of components within these colloidal systems (Heiden-Hecht et al., 2023 and 2024). We aim to link these characteristics with physico-chemical causes, and food characteristics.

The goal to understand the function of plant proteins in complex colloidal systems is addressed, and our work will contribute to solve a lot of important research questions concerning food colloid systems.

Website Food Laboratory

Methods for the isolation of proteins and characterisation of sustainable food colloids

I am among those who think that science has great beauty.

Marie Curie

Project-Team

Maren MüllerBuilding Garching-UYM / Room 03.25+49 89/158860-841
Viktoria ErdmannBuilding Garching-UYL / Room 0538+49 89/158860-841
Milena JeroschBuilding Garching-UYM / Room 03.68+49 89/158860-765
Dr. Henrich FrielinghausInstrument responsible for KWS-1, SANS group leader, Soft Matter coordinatorBuilding Garching-UYL / Room 0524+49 89/158860-706
Dr. Olaf HoldererInstrument Scientist J-NSE "PHOENIX"Building Garching-UYL / Room 0527+49 89/158860-707

God made the bulk; the interface was invented by the devil.

Wolfgang Pauli
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Last Modified: 14.07.2025