Physical Approaches for Modification of Vegan Protein Sources: A Review.

Over the last decade, there has been a promising increase in market trends toward plant proteins. This trend is expected to persist in coming years due to more sustainability, lower environmental footprints, and health benefits associated with plant proteins along with the recent surge in veganism. To meet market demand, plant-based proteins must compete with or outperform conventional animal proteins in terms of quality and functionality. However, plant proteins possess lower digestibility/solubility, lower water/oil holding capacity, and unfavorable emulsifying/foaming properties, which limit their bioavailability and functionality. The presence of anti-nutrients and non-digestible polysaccharides also results in lower quality, making it necessary to modify these properties through chemical, physical, and enzymatic methods. Food industries prefer physical and biological approaches over chemical approaches due to clean label demand and toxicity issues encountered while applying chemical methods. In this article, we investigate research progress in plant protein modification area using physical approaches comprising ultrasonication, pulse electric field, microwaves, extrusion, gamma irradiation, high-pressure processing, radiofrequency, and cold plasma. This review also highlights associated functionality challenges and summarizes recent studies in an attempt to improve plant protein functionality for obtaining multifunctional proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]