Impact of heat-set and cold-set gelling polysaccharides on potato protein gelation: Gellan gum, agar, and methylcellulose

The plant-based meat market is growing due to concerns about the sustainability of the modern food system. Plant-based meats are often constructed from blends of food biopolymers, such as plant proteins and polysaccharides. This study characterizes the thermal setting properties of potato protein (10%) and polysaccharide (2 wt%) mixtures containing polysaccharides with different reversible gelling behaviors: agar (cold set); gellan gum (cold set); or methyl cellulose (heat set). Each sample was heated above the thermal denaturation temperature of the potato proteins to promote protein unfolding, aggregation, and network formation. The addition of the polysaccharides tended to increase the complex shear modulus of the biopolymer blends before heating but increase or decrease it after heating depending on polysaccharide type. The shear modulus and hardness of the gels formed after heating tended to increase after addition of the cold-set polysaccharides but decrease after the addition of the heat-set polysaccharides, especially at refrigerator temperatures. Differential scanning calorimetry data showed that the potato proteins underwent irreversible denaturation after heating for all samples. Zeta-potential analysis showed that the potato proteins and all polysaccharides were negatively charged under the pH conditions used. There was greater water loss during heating for the composite gels containing methyl cellulose, which may have been due to its increase hydrophobicity at high temperatures. Appearance and microstructure analysis showed that phase-separation occurred after mixing the polysaccharides with the potato proteins, which was attributed to a segregation mechanism. The knowledge obtained from this study may help the food industry to optimize protein-polysaccharide blends to create gels with characteristics and structures that can mimic different plant-based meat products.