Protein product and process for preparing same
AssigneeGeneral Foods Corporation
InventorsEdward D. Murray, Chester D. Myers, Larry D. Barker
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Abstract
Proteins from a wide variety of sources--typically, starchy legumes, starchy cereals, and oilseeds--are extracted and recovered with gentle aqueous conditions which do not employ extremes of alkali, acid, or temperature. The ionic environment of these proteins is manipulated to firstly produce high solubility (salting-in) followed secondly by ionic strength reduction to cause the proteins to precipitate by a hydrophobic-out mechanism. This process results in the formation of novel proteinaceous products, referred to as protein micelles. The protein micellation process offers a new method for preparing protein isolates with conventional and non-conventional functionalities.
Claims5
A process for preparing a protein isolate product, comprising:
- (a) subjecting a protein source material to an aqueous food grade salt solution having a salt concentration of 0.2 to 0.8 ionic strength and a pH of about 5.5 to 6.3 at a temperature of about 15.degree. to 35.degree. C. to solubilize protein in said source material and obtain a salt-solubilized protein solution,
- (b) diluting the salt-solubilized protein solution to an ionic strength of less than 0.1 to cause precipitation of a protein isolate in the form of a protein micellar mass, and
- (c) collecting the precipitated protein miscellar mass.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.