Chemical and conformational changes in proteins through clean label strategies for enhanced functionality: Recent advances

Abstract Process‐based functionalization of food materials has gained immense interest as they contribute to the development of clean label ingredients that can offer similar functional properties as food additives of synthetic origin. Chemical and conformational changes in proteins can induce diverse and targeted functionalities that can be useful as food additives and processing aids. During processing, complex structural and chemical changes occur owing to molecular interactions and conformational changes happening due to the combined effects of pressure, temperature, shear, etc. Novel technologies such as high‐pressure processing, pulsed electric field, extrusion, microfluidization, etc. have been explored to enhance the quality of natural ingredients and their efficiency of functionalization. This review focuses on the advances made in protein functionalization for targeted applications in food matrices. It elucidates various chemical and conformational changes of proteins that can be targeted during processing for preparation of functional ingredients. The review also covers recent technological developments in functionalization of proteins.