Investigation of the functional and thermal properties of Mahua deoiled cake flour and its protein isolate for prospective food applications

The functional and thermal properties of the Mahua deoiled cake flour and its protein (RMP) extracted by the reverse micellar method were investigated. The amino acid composition analysis revealed the presence of both the essential and non-essential amino acids in the samples. The explored functional properties of the RMP like nitrogen solubility index, water and oil holding capacities, emulsifying property, foaming capacity, foaming stability, and color parameters were comparable to the other plant proteins and superior to the flour. Thermal analysis envisaged RMP to be more ordered and thermally stable. The higher emulsifying stability suggested the existence of some protruded nonpolar branched side chains in RMP that may promote interactions at oil/water interface. The wettability of the protein is significantly higher than the flour although both the biological samples were hydrophilic in nature. Moreover, RMP possessed potential antioxidant activity. Thus, the isolated protein could be an ideal precursor for specific product formulations dealing with the higher temperature processing.