Physiochemical characteristics and sensory properties of plant protein isolates-konjac glucomannan compound gels (original) (raw)

In recent years, consumer demand for food has begun to shift from animal-based food to plant-based food as social trends are emphasizing health and wellness (Leyland, 2018). Many food companies seized the opportunity to innovate novel products, such as Love Raw promoted vegan chocolate, Beyond Meat developed and improved meat analog, and Food Nation introduced plant-based patty. These food products are composed of diverse ingredients, but proteins and polysaccharides usually play vital parts in improving the texture, structure, and stability of products. For instance, proteins contribute to the formation of emulsions, foams, and gels (He et al., 2014; Mesa et al., 2009) while polysaccharides have remarkable water-holding capacity, thickening property, and biodegradability, which have been regularly employed as gelling agents, stabilizers, thickeners, and texture modifiers (Jiang et al., 2019; Saha & Bhattacharya, 2010; Zhao et al., 2018). Several types of plant proteins and polysaccharides have been applied in the food industry, like soy protein isolate (SPI) and konjac glucomannan (KGM) are widely used as nonmeat ingredients of various meat analog products (Gao et al., 2015; Jiménez-Colmenero et al., 2012). However, other proteins such as peanut protein isolate (PNPI) and pea protein isolate (PPI) only occupy a relatively small part of the market due to their functional characters are incompletely discovered and developed. Isolated soy protein is considered as the most functional of the soy protein due to its desirable physiochemical and functional