Improving and developing sustainable methods for plant protein processing

Authors: Liu, Keshun

Submitted to: Annual Meeting and Expo of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/18/2022
Publication Date: 5/4/2022
Citation: Liu, K. 2022. Improving and developing sustainable methods for plant protein processing. Meeting Abstract for 2022 AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo, May 1-4, 2022 (hybrid). 1/2. https://22aocs.meetbreakout.com/on-demand/improving-and-developing-sustainable-methods-for-protein-p.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Sustainability is the balance among environment, equity, and economy. We practice it to support ecological, human, and economic health and vitality, and to meet our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. With growing world population, widening gap between developed and developing economies, depleting natural resources, and devastating climate change, there is an urgent need for individuals, corporations, and governmental bodies to do more on sustainability. As oil chemists, we can all play important roles by choosing, selecting, and/or developing sustainable methods to process plant proteins into food or feed. Once these methods are adopted or used by others, a ripple effect is created, where an individual effort is transformed into the effort of a large community or even at an industrial level. Although there are many innovative ways to achieve sustainability when oil chemists are at work, reducing uses of chemicals and natural resources (water, energy, etc.) and cost, and generating less or no wastes are the key strategies. In this presentation, I discuss three processing methods I improved, contributed, or developed during last two decades, to illustrate how an individual chemist can contribute to sustainability. The methods to be discussed include a method for making plant-based meat analogs which has been commercialized, a method for producing soft and water-stable aquafeed, which serves as a promising strategy to mitigate water pollution associated with aquaculture, and a low-resource method for making soy protein concentrate, which is being evaluated at Soybean Innovation Lab for fighting malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa. Hopefully, we all can make efforts to provide sufficient proteins to all people regardless of their social and economic levels, while maintaining sustainability for benefiting current and future generations.