Consumption of nutritionally beneficial lipids, such as -3 fatty acids, is currently limited because of difficulties in incorporating these oxidatively unstable components into foods. Successful completion of this project would help overcome this problem through development of innovative delivery systems for encapsulating, protecting and delivering bioactive lipids. In particular, this project would lead to the development of structural design principles that could be used by the food industry to produce bioactive lipid-loaded biopolymer particles suitable for application in a wide range of foods. Successful completion of this project could therefore have major health and economic benefits for the nation. The approach used in this project could also be adapted to encapsulate other types of food components, such as flavors, minerals and vitamins. Improved knowledge of the controlled phase separation and gelation of mixed biopolymer systems could also be used to create novel physicochemical properties and functional performances in other types of food products, e.g., viscous solutions, suspensions or gels.