Milk, well known for its nutritional properties, has also good functional properties as foaming, emulsifying and biological activities due to proteins. Milk proteins are then considered as promising food ingredients due to their particular structural characteristics leading to various interesting properties in the industrial field. Thus, the examination of the biological activities and techno-functional properties (foaming and emulsifying properties) of some milk protein fractions revealed interesting ingredients for food industry due to their nutritional value, which is of a great scientific and industrial relevance. This chapter presented an overview of the studied functional properties of some milk proteins.
Part of the book: Bovine Science
Milk proteins are well known for their nutritional and functional properties. However, they are also members of the Big-8 food allergens including egg, fish, shellfish, soy, peanuts, wheat and tree nuts, in terms of prevalence. The most common milk allergens are casein fractions and β-lactoglobulin naturally not present in human breast milk. Thus, the examination of cow’s milk proteins as potential allergens that may cause food allergies and the identification of methods of reducing their immunogenicity are of great interest. The main objective of this chapter is to review the physico-chemical characteristics cow milk proteins as well as their studied allergenicity and immunogenicity as a function of some denatured dairy processes such as heating, high pressure, enzymatic hydrolysis and lactic acid fermentation.
Part of the book: Milk Protein