Impact of interactions between soy and pea proteins on quality characteristics of high-moisture meat analogues prepared via extrusion cooking process

Blending two or more ingredients to create a better product that possesses the characteristics of all its ingredients has been actively studied in the food science and technology field. However, there has not been enough research on the blend of multiple vegetable ingredients in the area of high-moisture meat analogue (HMMA) manufacturing. Moreover, there has been no study on the development of HMMAs from a blend of soy protein isolate (SPI) and pea protein isolate (PPI). Thus, the aims of this study were i) to examine whether HMMA prepared by blending SPI and PPI has better characteristics than HMMA produced with only SPI or PPI; ii) to investigate the effect of interactions with SPI and PPI on the quality characteristics of HMMAs, when SPI and PPI were blended in various weight ratios [100:0, 80:20, 60:40, 50:50, 40:60, 20:80, and 0:100 (w/w)]. The quality characteristics of HMMAs were investigated via specific mechanical energy (SME), mass flow rate (MFR), visual appearance, cutting strength, degree of texturization, and moisture content. HMMAs made from blending SPI and PPI showed better visual and textural characteristics than HMMA made from PPI only, but these properties were still worse than HMMA made from SPI only. However, the phenomenon of weakened cutting strength by PPI addition when preparing SPI-based HMMAs suggested that PPI can be used as a tenderizer (texture modifier) in SPI-based HMMAs. Therefore, SPI and PPI-blended HMMAs suit the diets of the elderly because they require less force to masticate than SPI-only HMMA. In conclusion, our findings demonstrated that blending two or more protein sources can have a positive effect on the quality characteristics of HMMAs.