New paper on oral tribology of alternative proteins published in Food Hydrocolloids by Ben Kew

A new paper titled “Oral tribology, adsorption and rheology of alternative food proteins” has been published in Food Hydrocolloids (Volume 116, Article no. 106636). This comprehensive work on plant and insect proteins carried out by Ben Kew (PhD Student, ERC LubSat Project) in collaboration with Dr. Melvin Holmes  and Prof. Markus Stieger from Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands demonstrates lubrication, adsorption and physicochemical properties of alternative proteins (pea, potato, lupin and insect proteins) with whey protein isolate (WPI) as the control. Strong correlations existed between friction coefficient scaled to viscosity, size and hydrated mass and viscoelasticity of films in alternative proteins, validating the surface-linked phenomena in frictional response. Strikingly, all alternative proteins showed effective lubrication at 5 wt% concentration following a distinct reduction in lubrication performance at 10 wt%. Such increase in friction in presence of alternative proteins at higher concentration is most possibly due to aggregation and jamming of the proteins in the contact region behaving like particle aggregates rather than a lubricating polymeric film. Among the tested proteins, potato protein seems to stand out in its lubrication performance because of its smaller size and ability to form a rigid layer at the surface. Check out the details of the paper at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2021.106636