Technical solutions for the effective use of food resources in food systems technology

One of the key trends in the food industry is the development of products that are not only characterized by high quality, but also comply with the principles of environmental cleanliness and energy balance. Legumes are being studied as a way to solve the problem of protein deficiency and provide adequate and high-quality nutrition to the rapidly growing world population. The purpose of the study is to find solutions and evaluate existing approaches to technologies for processing plant proteins, using the example of pea protein, including such processing stages as: extraction, fractionation, modification. Extraction of the protein fraction of soybeans and peas based on traditional methods has already received an industrial solution. At the same time, eco-innovative approaches are being developed that combine supercritical extraction with carbon dioxide, subcritical aqueous extraction, methods based on the use of ultrasound, pressure, plasma, etc. Of importance for rational and sustainable production is the problem of fractionation and modification of products obtained during extraction. The potential range of use of these products is determined by their functional and technological properties, which directly depend on the molecular characteristics of individual protein fractions. The work analyzes technical solutions in the field of modification of vegetable protein, incl. chemical, physical and biological. Depending on the essence of the methods used and the effects achieved during the modification, the main dependencies and limitations are determined. The challenges that cause difficulties in the selection and unification of extraction, fractionation and modification methods when applied to different types of legumes and even varieties of the same species are considered. It has been established using the example of products of stage-by-stage processing of peas (flour, concentrate, isolate, individual protein fractions) that the functional and technological properties of products largely depend on the methods used for their production, the degree of changes in the protein structure, the ratio of individual protein fractions and their initial physical and chemical properties (amino acid profile, structure, conformation, charge, hydrophobicity, size, etc.).