Abstract
Pea protein is increasingly of interest to the food science community as a potential sustainable alternative to animal-based protein. However, the texture of plant based products is still lacking, which leads product developers to search for new ways to functionalize their protein. The impacts of shear and temperature can lead to novel textures, though the impacts of cold denaturation on protein structure remain somewhat unknown. This work aims to optimize the design of a single screw extruder to maximize the specific mechanical energy (SME) while achieving the minimum temperatures of the exiting product. This is achieved by comparing a variety of moisture
contents at room temperature and an extruder chilled to ~ – 15°C. The SME is monitored through a neural network trained on video data of the instantaneous extruder motor power. This design allows for low temperature extrusion and the formation of novel pea protein functions.