MOLECULAR-TRANSFORMATIONS OF PROTEINACEOUS FOODS DURING EXTRUSION PROCESSING

Although extrusion cooking has been applied with great commercial succ ess to the production of shaped pasta products and ready-to-eat breakf ast cereals for over 50 years, its application to the texturization of vegetable proteins is a more recent innovation. However, although the last 20 years or so have seen a great deal of activity in this area a nd textured products from protein-rich sources, especially soy flour, are now readily available, our understanding of the chemical changes i nvolved are only now beginning to be understood. This review summarize s our current knowledge, highlighting the possible importance of elect rostatic interactions in the extruder and the chemistry involved in th e formation of covalent bonds that may be of importance in texture dev elopment.