Proteins play an important role in many food systems. Food technologists, who understand structure formation and relationships between macroscopic properties microstructure and molecular properties, may fruitfully apply this information in the development and the processing of food products. The latter was performed by stretching a small sheet of the gel and measuring the elongation as a function of the applied force. In addition, changes in the conformation of the protein molecules were examined. A heat-set ovalbumin gel at pH 5.
Dark area represents protein.
Note an aggregated inhomogeneous protein structure. A heat-set ovalbumin gel at pH 5. Note the granular structure. SEM after freeze-drying. A heat-set ovalbumin gel at pH 10.