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The Codex Committee on Vegetable Proteins has developed an international general standard for vegetable protein products. This standard applies to vegetable protein products intended for use in foods and prepared by various separation and extraction processes from proteins of vegetable sources except single-cell proteins. The vegetable protein products are intended for use in foods requiring further preparation and for use by the food-processing industry. The vegetable protein products standard applies to food products produced by the reduction or removal from vegetable materials of the major constituents (water, oil, starch, and other carbohydrates) in a manner to achieve a protein content of 40% or more. The Codex Committee on Vegetable Proteins  has also developed international standards for soy-protein products (flour, concentrate, and isolate) and for wheat gluten. These vegetable protein products are extensively used in international trade.

Applications of vegetable proteins in food products:

The use of vegetable proteins for novel food applications requires an understanding of the complex nature of food systems. Most food systems are heterogeneous regarding:

• protein composition, as it concerns generally mixtures of various proteins,
• water, lipids, carbohydrates, and other minor components such as salts or pigments; some of them can markedly interact with proteins and affect the organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of the food product, and
• structural organization (emulsions, foams, films, etc.).

Moreover, proteins are not often completely native. They can be totally or partially denatured or may have undergone other modifications, such as partial proteolysis.

Food applications of seed protein preparations:

The largest market for protein preparation in human foods continues to be soybean, although protein isolates from other grains, e.g. pea, wheat, lupin, sunflower, cottonseed or rapeseed, are currently being explored with great interest. The consumption patterns of soybean are not homogeneous around the world. In the Far East, soybeans have been consumed for thousands of years in various forms in traditional foods such as tofu, soymilk and fermented products.  In the Western world, it is only during the last 40 years that soybean products have been more widely consumed; mostly in the form of refined soybean protein ingredients used by the food industry. However, an estimated 85% of the world’s soybeans are converted into oil and defatted meal. The meal is mainly used in animal feed. A small portion is further processed into food ingredients including soybean flour, concentrates, isolates, hydrolysates and textured proteins. 

Food applications of potato and green leaves:

Food applications of potato proteins are still constrained by the lack on an efficient non-denaturing large-scale method for their recovery. Furthermore, the presence of protease inhibitors is undesirable in foods. Research efforts are aimed at inactivation procedures that avoid extensive protein in-solubilization. Potato proteins can be used for fortifying bakery products. In normal bread dough the possibility of addition of potato protein is limited, while the protein content in crispbread can be doubled without essential changes in its typical characteristics, such as crumb structure, specific volume and hardness.

Textured vegetable proteins:

Textured vegetable proteins can be defined as ‘food products made from edible protein sources and characterized by having structural integrity and identifiable texture such that each unit will withstand hydration in cooking and other procedures used in preparing the food for consumption’.

Advantages of textured vegetable proteins use in canned food products include:

• The extruded products are dried to less than 8% moisture and under normal storage conditions have a shelf-life of about one year. Freezers or cold storage are not required.
• Textured vegetable proteins can be fortified with vitamins, minerals, and other supplements to provide balanced nutrition in the final canned product.
• Textured vegetable proteins maintain their structure upon hydration and provide a meat-like texture.
• They normally absorb two to three times their weight in water and have good fat-absorption properties.
• They have low bacteria counts in comparison to meats.
• The products can be coloured, flavored, and sized to resemble a wide variety of food products.
• They allow canners a means of making meat-like canned products in the off-season, thereby allowing year-around utilization of equipment.

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