Enhanced oil seed protein recovery

A process of preparing a protein isolate, which comprises:

• (a) crushing oil seeds to form oil and oil seed meal therefrom,
• (b) solvent extracting the oil seed meal to recover residual oil therefrom,
• (c) recovering solvent from the extracted oil seed meal by heating the same at a temperature of about 100° C. or less to provide a toasted oil seed meal,
• (d) extracting the toasted oil seed meal to cause solubilization of protein in said toasted oil seed meal and to form an aqueous protein solution having a pH of about 5 to about 6.8,
• (e) separating the aqueous protein solution from residual oil seed meal,
• (f) increasing the protein concentration of said aqueous protein solution while maintaining the ionic strength substantially constant by using a selective membrane technique to provide a concentrated protein solution,
• (g) diluting said concentrated protein solution into chilled water having a temperature of below about 15° C. to cause the formation of discrete protein particles in the aqueous phase at least partially in the form of micelles,
• (h) settling the protein micelles to form an amorphous, sticky, gelatinous, gluten-like protein micellar mass, and
• (i) recovering the protein micellar mass from supernatant, the protein micellar mass having a protein content of at least about 90 wt % as determined by Kjeldahl nitrogen×6.25 on a dry weight basis.