Flavor-protein interactions for four plant protein isolates and whey protein isolate with aldehydes

Aldehydes are important flavor molecules to consider in plant-based products. Here, the flavor retention of a series of saturated aldehydes and mono-unsaturated aldehydes (2-alkenals) with different chain lengths (C4, C6, C8, and C10) in dispersions with protein isolates of pea, soy, fava bean, chickpea, and whey (as reference) was analyzed with APCI-TOF-MS. The headspace concentrations of alkenals were lower than aldehydes, meaning alkenals were retained more than saturated aldehydes. The retention was modeled by assuming hydrophobic interactions and covalent interactions. The ratio between the hydrophobic interaction parameter and the covalent parameter showed that covalent interactions are mainly important for butanal and butenal (C4). For the other aldehydes, hydrophobic interactions became increasingly important. Correlations were found between the chemical interaction parameters and the cysteine and methionine content of the different proteins. The obtained model parameters for each set of proteins and flavors allow the prediction of flavor retention when developing a flavored product with high protein content.