The previous sections have described the gaps in plant protein ingredient science and technology. However, we usually eat foods, and not individual ingredients. After obtaining highly functional plant proteins, the challenge is to transform these ingredients into delicious and nutritious foods. The following sections describe some important factors: the role of protein–polysaccharide interactions, the ability to structure plant proteins into fibers and gels, the inclusion of flavors derived from plant proteins, and nutrition to guide the development of plant-based foods.
2.1. Protein–Polysaccharide Interactions
Most foods are a complex mixture of various components. In addition to proteins, polysaccharides make up the predominant component in most plant-based ingredients. Polysaccharides are sugar polymers linked by glycosidic bonds and include a vast family such as starch, cellulose, pectins, agars, carrageenans, alginates and gums
[11]. By capitalizing on the natural polysaccharides found in many plant protein sources, less-refined plant ingredients could be utilized, because polysaccharides also form the major building blocks in food products as structuring and stabilizing agents through their thickening, emulsifying, and gelling properties
[12]. When used in combination with proteins, their functionality can be further expanded through mutual biopolymer interactions
[13]. Hence, there is great interest in understanding and controlling protein–polysaccharide interactions to design plant-based foods such as plant-based milks, ice cream and pudding.
From a search of the literature, a total of 49 articles relating to plant proteins with polysaccharides were found published between 1990 and 2021, with the majority (30 articles) published in the last five years. Although this is reflective of the present emphasis on plant protein research, the number of studies is still a small fraction of the entire plant protein research field. Hence, there is a great opportunity to explore deeper into this area. In addition to advancing basic knowledge, polysaccharides could help overcome some functional shortcomings of plant proteins, with the potential to replace animal proteins
[14][15]. The following sections summarize the key movements in this area.
The solubility of plant proteins is relatively low; therefore, the addition of polysaccharides has been employed to improve overall biopolymer solubility, and this is often coupled with a processing or modification step. Some examples include simple complexation
[16][17], sonication
[18][19] and conjugation
[20][21][22]. Most notably, some authors report that the biopolymer solubility improved close to the protein isoelectric point
[18] with minimum protein solubility shifting towards more acidic regions
[16]. This is likely due to a change in net biopolymer surface charges upon complexation and modification. The shift in the apparent biopolymer isoelectric point will be useful for developing acidic beverages with high protein content, to reduce the precipitation of plant proteins. This strategy deserves further examination such as including other types of processing methods.
In addition to solubility, polysaccharides also improve the viscosity
[23][24], foaming
[17][25][26][27], emulsifying
[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and gelling
[37][38][39][40][41][42][43] properties of plant proteins. Although the alteration of biopolymer interfacial properties would have obvious effects on foaming and emulsifying properties, an interesting approach is to leverage on the poor solubility of plant proteins, to create insoluble plant protein–polysaccharide particles as Pickering emulsion stabilizers
[32][33]. Furthermore, it is important to note that processing plays an important role. For example, the thermal treatment of plant protein–starch mixtures led to a mixed protein–starch gel network
[44][45], whereas high-pressure processing resulted in starch granules remaining intact and ungelatinized, acting as a filler in the pressure-induced protein gel matrix
[42]. High-pressure processing can also kinetically arrest protein–polysaccharide phase separation through pressure-induced gelation, because the transmission of hydrostatic pressure is quasi-instantaneous compared to thermal gradients found in conventional heat processing. This suggests promising directions to explore further.
Polysaccharides do not always improve plant protein performance
[46]. In some cases, it may even worsen their properties (e.g., reducing solubility and foaming capacity due to the formation of insoluble electrostatic complexes
[47]). More work is needed to understand how these situations occur. In addition to environmental factors such as pH, biopolymer concentrations and ratio, and ionic strength of the system, some intrinsic factors influencing protein–polysaccharide interactions include the shape of the plant proteins. For example, globulins are spherical and highly charged compared to the more extended and charge-diffused gliadins; these differences can affect the interactions and phase separation with various polysaccharides
[48]. Another important deliberation is the natural state of the protein. As discussed previously, most commercially available plant protein isolates tend to be largely denatured, and it has been shown to affect the interactions and resultant properties with polysaccharides
[49]. To round off this section, other active research areas include complex coacervation
[50][51][52][53][54][55][56] and applications in encapsulation
[57][58][59][60].
2.3. Flavors Generated from Plant Proteins
Flavor is one of the sensory attributes that affects a consumer’s eating quality and food purchasing decision. Numerous studies on meaty flavor chemistry have discovered thousands of volatile compounds from meat or model systems consisting of meat ingredients. Due to the rising trend in alternative proteins, there is interest in developing this meaty flavor from non-meat sources such as plant proteins. These meaty flavors can be generated via the Maillard reaction, a process whereby free amino compounds (e.g., amino acids or peptides) and reducing sugars (e.g., pentoses or hexoses) are reacted together under specific conditions to produce melanoidins
[92]. The plant proteins are broken down into amino acids and peptides through enzymatic hydrolysis to generate these meaty flavors.
The most abundant flavor compounds formed during the Maillard reaction are aliphatic aldehydes, ketones, diketones, and lower fatty acids
[93]. However, heterocyclic compounds containing oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, or combinations of these atoms are much more numerous and play a significant role in the flavor development of thermally processed foods. The development of a meaty flavor is often influenced by reacting sulfur-containing amino acids (e.g., cysteine) with reducing sugars, where pentoses such as ribose or xylose are preferably used
[94]. The chemical reaction between cysteine and reducing sugars is believed to be the main pathway for the formation of meaty flavor for most food products. The dicarbonyl compounds formed during the Maillard reaction catalyze the Strecker degradation of cysteine to generate mercaptoacetaldehyde, acetaldehyde and hydrogen sulfide as the primary degradation products
[95]. These Strecker degradation products then start a series of reactions that lead to the formation of meaty flavor compounds.
There have been published reports using several plant proteins to generate meaty flavors such as pea protein
[96], quinoa protein
[97], flaxseed protein
[98], soybean protein
[99][100], etc. Xylose was widely reported as the reducing sugar used for the Maillard reaction, except for a combination of sugars (ribose, xylose, arabinose, fructose, glucose and galactose) used by Zhou et al. when reacting with pea protein hydrolysates
[96]. Based on the gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy analysis, several aroma compounds such as furans, pyrazines, ketones, aldehydes, and others were detected from the Maillard reaction products (MRPs). Both Wei et al.
[98] and Fadel et al.
[99] reported the identification of 2-methyl-3-furanthiol, an odorant compound characterized with a meaty, sweet and sulfurous aroma in the MRPs
[92]. This compound was formed by the Maillard reaction of cysteine and reducing sugar in a model system. However, these authors also reported the addition of sulfur-containing compounds such as cysteine, taurine and thiamine together with the protein hydrolysates and reducing sugars in heat treatment for the Maillard reaction
[96][97][98][99][100]. Further work could be conducted to avoid these sulfur-containing compounds and only use the free amino acids or peptides from the plant protein hydrolysates to react with the reducing sugar.
3. Conclusions
This review has presented a roadmap to accelerate plant protein science and technology, focusing on plant protein ingredient development and the creation of delicious and nutritious plant-based future foods. The areas for further improvement include plant protein extraction, fractionation, and modification. More research is also needed in understanding plant protein–polysaccharide interactions, developing different structuring techniques, incorporating plant protein-generated flavors, and improving plant protein nutritional value. An area that needs future attention is the potential impact that different forms of fractionation and improved functionality may have on its nutritional quality. Finally, although the focus has been on plant proteins, it is vital to note that we usually eat whole foods and not individual ingredients; hence, other components that make up future foods will also be needed to be considered.