Using protein of overground part of plants in food technologies

Abstract

Background. Proteins are the most important component of food thanks to their ability to help growing cells, create new tissue and restore those damaged. The need of a live entity in proteins is conditioned by its need in amino acids – both dispensable and essential. Therefore, reasonable attention is now paid to problems of searches for the new sources of proteins, working out the easily absorbed complexes from plant raw materials either traditional or non-traditional for food industry.
Material and methods. We have based our research on scientific works by Ukrainian and foreign authors, and the results of our own experiments examined by analytic and comparative methods.
The mass part of amino acids was determined by ion-change liquid columnar chromatography using the automatic analyzer Т 339 (produced by Microtechna Corp., Czech Republic); the mass part of tryptophan was determined by colorimetrical method with previous alkali hydrolysis.
Results. To improve the structure of nutrition and to fulfill better the needs of human organism in main nutrients and energy, it is expedient to enrich the traditional foodstuffs lacking the main amino acids, and to create the new generation of foods with balanced amino acid content.
Human organism is able to synthesize all the necessary proteins in necessary amounts only if the essential amino acids are present in proper quantities. Unless one of there is absent, proteins cannot be synthesized, and food is used just as the source of energy, or is deposited in fats. Therefore, we should provide the adequate supply of the organism with the rational nutrition with balanced plant and animal proteins. It’s one of the most essential factors of being healthy in modern conditions.
The analysis of the data gives an evidence of quite rich amino acid content in researched plant materials. The most attractive results are the sum of sulfur-containing amino acids in overground part of beets and carrot, as the contemporary investigations showed the high antioxidant potential of these substances, which is crucially important in designing the foodstuffs with antioxidant action.
The data [18] evidence that adding a small amount of indispensable amino acids to flour milled from various grains may significantly increase the nutritional value of obtained half products and, as a result, may economize some food resources.
Conclusion. Practically all of the amino acids absorbed from natural raw materials transform into important biologically active substances in human organism. To refill the protein component in diets, it is necessary to search for the new sources of protein, including those non-traditional. Conducted researches have shown that the overground part of many agricultural plants may serve a perspective source of plant proteins that in combination with those of animal origin would provide the well-balanced protein nutrition and help overtake the protein deficit in Ukrainian population.