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Food Biopolymers: Structural, Functional, and Nutraceutical Properties: Food Proteins: An Overview

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Food biopolymers: Structural, functional and nutraceutical properties

Abstract

The uptake of proteins is one of the major factors for maintaining human health. They contribute to the nutritional properties of foods due to the presence of essential amino acids which are important for growth and maintenance of body. Despite their predominance of amino acids, proteins also have a wide range of structural and functional properties which have a profound impact on food quality. Functional properties of proteins depend upon physicochemical characteristics, interaction with protein and non-protein components and environmental conditions of the food system. The functional properties of food proteins have a profound effect on the behavior of foods during preparation, processing, storage, and consumption and significantly contribute to the quality and sensory attributes of food system. Food application of proteins reviews towards protein structure and subsequently their application for the development of multifunctional ingredients for the food industry. Food systems are usually complex in terms of protein composition, other constituents like lipids, carbohydrates and various minor constituents like salt, sugars, and other phenolic and flavoring compounds and also the structural and spatial organization of these compounds play a crucial role in food systems. Furthermore, significant changes in the properties of foods are induced by environmental factors and processing conditions that are typical for food systems. With this complexity in mind, this chapter describes the basic chemical and physical properties of proteins and amino acid building blocks and also provides an overview of the factors that can influence the properties of proteins in food systems and also suggests some approaches that can elucidate the structural and functional relationships of food proteins.

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Mir, N.A., Bharadwaj, M., Yousuf, B., Gul, K., Riar, C.S., Singh, S. (2021). Food Biopolymers: Structural, Functional, and Nutraceutical Properties: Food Proteins: An Overview. In: Gani, A., Ashwar, B.A. (eds) Food biopolymers: Structural, functional and nutraceutical properties. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27061-2_9

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