Interactions of vegetable proteins with other polymers: Structure-function relationships and applications in the food industry

Background In recent years, there has been increasing interest in vegetable proteins, due to their various health beneficial functions and wide applications in the food industry. Vegetable proteins combined with other edible polymers can be used to improve the quality and nutritional value of food products. In these complex food systems, interactions between different components are inevitable, and these interactions have a significant influence on the structure and functions of food products. Scope and approach This study reviews the current status of knowledge of interactions between vegetable proteins and other polymers (proteins or polysaccharides) in food systems and the structure of complexes formed by these interactions. The study also provides a comprehensive review of the applications of the complexes. Key findings and conclusions Vegetable proteins display different types of interactions with other polymers (e.g., polysaccharides, or animal proteins) under different conditions, thus forming a variety of complexes with different structures (e.g., double networks, mosaic textures and cross-linked structures), which showed different impact on properties of the final food products and their applications (e.g., substitution for fat, or encapsulation for bioactive ingredients) in the food industry. However, previous studies mainly focused on leguminous proteins and vegetable-protein-based mixtures of two polymers, further studies on other vegetable proteins and more complex food systems containing vegetable proteins and other polymers are required.