Patent ID: 6992173

Claim:
A process of preparing a protein isolate, which comprises: (a) crushing oil seeds to form oil and oil seed meal therefrom, (b) solvent extracting the oil seed meal to recover residual oil therefrom, (c) removing solvent from the extracted oil seed meal at a temperature of below 50° C. to provide a desolventized oil seed meal, (d) extracting the desolventized oil seed meal to cause solubilization of protein in said desolventized oil seed meal and to form an aqueous protein solution having a pH of about 5 to about 6.8, (e) separating the aqueous protein solution from residual oil seed meal, (f) increasing the protein concentration of said aqueous protein solution while maintaining the ionic strength substantially constant by using a selective membrane technique to provide a concentrated protein solution, (g) diluting said concentrated protein solution into chilled water having a temperature of below 15° C. to cause the formation of discrete protein particles in the aqueous phase in the form of micelles, (h) settling the protein micelles to form an amorphous, sticky, gelatinous, gluten-like protein micellar mass, and (i) recovering the protein micellar mass from supernatant, the protein micellar mass having a protein content of at least 100 wt % (N×6.25) on a dry weight basis.