Unlocking the nutritional and functional potential of legume waste to produce protein ingredients

Abstract

Worldwide, many production supply chains generate a considerable amount of legume by-products (e.g., leaves, husks, broken seeds, defatted cakes). These wastes can be revalorized to develop sustainable protein ingredients, with positive economic and environmental effects. To separate protein from legume by-products, a broad spectrum of conventional (e.g., alkaline solubilization, isoelectric precipitation, membrane filtration) and novel methodologies (e.g., ultrasound, high-pressure homogenization, enzymatic approaches) have been studied. In this review, these techniques and their efficiency are discussed in detail. The present paper also provides an overview of the nutritional and functional characteristics of proteins extracted from legume by-products. Moreover, existing challenges and limitations associated with the valorization of by-product proteins are highlighted, and future perspectives are proposed.

Keywords:

• Legume protein
• waste valorization
• protein extraction
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under grant no. 2019PROG702 (U-PROTEIN project).