Animal- and plant-based proteins are present in a wide variety of raw and processed foods. They play an important role in determining the final structure of food matrices. Food proteins are diverse in terms of their biological origin, molecular structure, and supramolecular assembly. This diversity has led to segmented experimental studies that typically focus on one or two proteins but hinder a more general understanding of food protein structuring as a whole. In this review, we propose a unified view of how soft-matter physics can be used to control food protein assembly. We discuss physical models from polymer and colloidal science that best describe and predict the phase behavior of proteins. We explore the occurrence of phase transitions along two axes: increasing protein concentration and increasing molecular attraction. This review provides new perspectives on the link between the interactions, phase transitions, and assembly of proteins that can help in designing new food products and innovative food processing operations.
Keywords: assembly; food proteins; interaction; physics; supramolecular structure.