Plant Power! From traditional crops to alt proteins Atze Jan van der Goot Food Protein Vision, Amsterdam, 8 March 2018
The problem: Making same food requires more recourses Tilman, PNAS 20260 (2011) Global boundaries: nitrogen cycle 2
Sustainability of food products Sustainability is mostly relevant at diet level or even larger Role of overconsumption proteins Product to product comparison are often quite subjective Value to by-product streams Chicken manure as raw material for mushrooms Thinking in chemical components (e.g. proteins) is not very helpful to make diets more sustainable 3
The Vegetarian Steak 4
Which part of meat consumption to replace? Partly replacement Full replacement Alternative for vegetarians D C B A 0 35 60 120 Positive health effects well digestible and high quality protein iron Vitamin B12 Negative health effects Red or processed meat e.g. Colon cancer 5
So the challenges of designing meat analogues 0 35 60 120 What is the target group: Meat lovers prefers large similarity in sensory properties Real vegetarians might prefer other plant-protein products Nutritional value: Real meat eaters: a different ingredient composition is better Vegetarians/vegans: need micro-nutrients of meat Sustainability in general for foods Limiting processing: composition plants 6
Meat production Primary production crops Feed production Digestion separation hydrolysis Muscle/Meat Production Amino acid polymerisation Production of final product Slaughtering and sizing 7
Production process of soy protein isolate: industrial digestion Soy beans Milling Defatting Oil dissolved in hexane Suspending flour in ph 8 Fibres Protein precipitataion ph 4.8 Sugars To neutal ph and spray drying Protein isolate powder
Protein purity Dilemma Purity and Yield 90% Protein isolate Protein concentrate 40% Flour Protein yield 60% 100% Yield Chicken Protein : 25%
Alt proteins: Proteins from Sugar Beet Leaves Abundant waste streams Protein source Process available Plant tissue Photosynthetic machinery Sugar storage 10
Traditional approach Pure ingredients Products Protein Raw material Oil Carbohydrates Isolation Rest to non-food applications Mixing with water, heating 11
First aiming at proteins Leaf proteins Soluble Photosystem I (Dekker & Boekema, 2005) Insoluble Membrane proteins 100 proteins, protein complexes Subunits: between <5 and 60 kda No water soluble, green Soluble Rubisco Soluble and white 540 kda, 2 subunits Chromatographic methods! Processes focussed on rubisco isolation 12
Is everything extracted? Leaf processing Chromatographic purification 50 C Supernatant Purified rubisco fraction Sugar beet leaves Pressing Fibers Juice Heating Centrifuging Pellet Only 6% of total proteins Protein distribution during processing Tamayo Tenorio et al; Food Chem. (2016) 13
Protein purity wt% (db) How to extract protein? Photosystem I Learning from other disciplines proteomics Solvents for different conditions TCA- acetone Methanol Acetone Phenol/SDS 80 6 60 5 Membrane proteins Heterogeneous No pool of proteins in large quantities 40 20 0 3 2 1 4 Leaf 0 20 40 60 80 100 Protein yield % Tamayo Tenorio et al; Food Chem. (2017) 14
Protein purity (w/w %) Dilemma purity yield Yield Chicken Protein : 25% 100 SBL 80 60 40 20 Alfalfa Coliflower leaves Duckweed Aquatic plants Algae1 Series4 Series12 Seaweed 2 Soy Series1 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 Yield (%) Rapeseed Pulses
Chloroplastic membranes: Value of structures Chloroplast Stroma Aqueous extraction Leaf Juice Thylakoids membranes Buffer Juice filtration Thylakoid membranes Membranes proteins 200nm Transmission Electron microscope (TEM) Osmium staining Protein-lipid complexes Interfacial properties Tamayo Tenorio et al; Soft Matter (2017) 16
Extraction of chloroplastic membranes Emulsifying mechanism Characterisation Application on O/W emulsions wt% 0.03 0.05 0.08 0.1 Oil Protein complexes Membrane lipids Plant Power! Antioxidant activity (Thomas et al., 2016) Satiation effect: composition and structure (Erlanson-Albertsson & Albertsson, 2015) Encapsulation of active compounds 17
Cellulosic particles from leaf fibrous pulp Cell wall Cytosol Plasma membrane Sugar beet leaves Pressing Juice Plasma membrane Cytosol Cellulose microfibrils Hemicellulose Pectin Cell wall structural proteins Fibres Aqueous extraction Washing Freeze drying Milling Fine powder (20 100 µm) 18
Cellulose-rich particles from leaf fibrous pulp Emulsifying properties Oil 0.1 0.5 Fibre concentration % w/v 1.0 Protein domains Pickering emulsifiers Benefit from protein impurities Source of dietary fibres Bulk ingredient, low calorie 19
Sugar beet leaves 50 C Supernatant Rubisco isolation Sugar beet leaves Pressing Juice Heating Centrifuging Pellet Chloroplastic membranes Fibers Fraction Fibers Supernatant Green-pellet Chloroplastic membranes Existing components Protein-carbohydrate complex Mainly Rubisco protein Protein-lipid complex Protein-lipid complex 20
Towards functional ingredients Raw materials Functional fraction Product Fractionation Structuring / Product assembly
Concluding remarks Leaves (or other novel sources) as a food source use all fractions and explore the potential applications of less refined material Highly refined ingredients limits options towards sustainable diet Functional bulk properties leave proteins not investigated Protein over-consumption allows replacement of meat by products with lower protein content Sustainability relevant at diet level Product level subjective 22
Plant Power! From traditional crops to alt proteins Atze Jan van der Goot Food Protein Vision, Amsterdam, 8 March 2018