Thermal, rheological, and microstructural characterization of composite gels from fava bean protein and pea starch

Created in BioRender. Ignatzy, L. (2025) https://BioRender.com/kixm4bg • Replacing starch with 25% protein reduces viscosity by up to 80% • The addition of protein significantly decreases G′ in protein-starch gels • Rheological properties improve upon reaching the protein’s least gelation concentration (15%) • Composition-dependent formation of separate starch and protein gel networks • Cryo-SEM and CLSM reveal distinct microstructures in composite protein-starch gels