ORIGINAL ARTICLE Organogelation Capacity of Epicuticular and Cuticular Waxes from Flax and Wheat Straws Diego Canizares 1,2 · Paul Angers 1,2 · Cristina Ratti 1,3 Received: 18 November 2019 / Revised: 29 September 2020 / Accepted: 1 October 2020 © 2020 AOCS Abstract Valorization of the agri-food industry by-products could contribute to curb issues related to food security and environmental problems. Flax and wheat seeds are major prod- ucts of this industry, but their production is associated with tons of straws that can be valorized for their cuticular and epi- cuticular waxes. We aimed to determine the organogelation capacity of epicuticular waxes in comparison to cuticular waxes from both flax and wheat straws. Epicuticular waxes from flax and wheat straws have structured canola oil at 2% and 4% (w/w), respectively, whereas cuticular waxes from flax and wheat straws required critical concentrations of 4% and 5% (w/w), respectively. Characterization of the organogelation capacity (onset of crystallization temperature, temperature of phase transition, crystal morphology, solid fat, crystalline structure, and oil binding capacity) was also carried out. The high onset of crystallization temperature (38.1  1.2  C), the phase transition at high temperature (38  1.5  C), and capac- ity to structure canola oil at low concentration showed that epi- cuticular wax from flax straw is a promisor fat substitute, presenting organogelation properties comparable to the best results obtained in the literature for other vegetal waxes. Keywords Organogelation capacity  Epicuticular waxes  Cuticular waxes  Oil structuration  Fat substitute  Crystallization J Am Oil Chem Soc (2020). Introduction An organogelator is a compound that can structure oil into a gel-like material called organogel (Co and Marangoni, 2012). A gel is named hydrogel when the immobilized liquid phase is hydrophilic and organogel, when is hydrophobic (Co and Marangoni, 2012). By defini- tion, a gel is a substance with permanent, on time scale, continuous macroscopic structure and macroscopic dimen- sions, which must exhibit solid like rheological behavior despite its high liquid volume fraction (Flory, 1953). Organogel can be used to avoid defects caused by oil migration and to develop low-fat food products, such as margarines, salad dressings, pastries, confectionery prod- ucts, and spreads (Blake et al., 2014; Co and Marangoni, 2012; Singh et al., 2017). There are two major research areas on oil structuration. One evaluates the potential of polymers and the other stud- ies the uses of low-weight organic molecules on the oil structuration (Co and Marangoni, 2012). Both methods have shown good results, diverging on the underlying mechanisms of structuration and on the final properties of the structured oil (Co and Marangoni, 2012). One of the most studied approaches involves the development of net- works of colloidal crystalline particles (Blake et al., 2014; Co and Marangoni, 2012; Singh et al., 2017). For instance, vegetal waxes are a mix of very long carbon chains, such as esters (32–54), alkanes (21–35), primary alcohols (20–36), and triterpenoids (Buschhaus and Jetter, 2011; Canizares et al., 2019a, 2019b), which have shown interest- ing organogelation properties through crystallization (Blake * Diego Canizares canizares-diego@hotmail.com 1 Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods (INAF), Laval University, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada 2 Department of Food Science, Laval University, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada 3 Department of Soils Science and Agri-Food Engineering, Laval University, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada J Am Oil Chem Soc (2020) DOI 10.1002/aocs.12441 J Am Oil Chem Soc (2020)