Expanding the range of sustainable functional foods with high added-value based on leguminous seeds

Peas (Pisum sativum L.) are becoming an important vegetable source of proteins and a potential alternative to soybean in Europe. Besides the nutritional and health-promoting advantages of the legumes, it is well known that the use of legumes, is limited due to the presence of various antinutritional factors such as trypsin inhibitors that reduce nutrient utilization or food intake, and also cause pancreatic hypertrophy. The trypsin inhibitor content of peas is similar to that of the filed bean, but is only 10% of the level found in soybeans. Pea seed trypsin inhibitors belong to the the Bowman-Birk family so they have similar structure to the well-characterised soybean Bowman-Birk trypsin inhibitors. Proteomic analysis is emerging as a highly useful tool in food research, including studies of food allergens, antinutritional factors, the protein digestibility and the effect of technological treatments. In this work, 15 domestic peas were submitted for protein analysis, with special regard to the trypsin inhibitors. The objective of this study was to identify the isoinhibitors of the different pea species, and monitor the fate of the proteins’ digestibility by the means of static in vitro digestion modelling in order to reveal the suitability of the pea types for human consumption, especially for functional food production. Selection of the right cultivars that contain more unstable isoforms may require less heat treatment, with more suitable nutritional value for human consumption and lower processing costs.