Pea protein offers health benefits and functional properties, but its limited food applications require modification to enhance its performance and expand its potential applications in the food industry.

The health benefits, functional properties, modifications, and applications of pea (Pisum sativum L.) protein: Current status, challenges, and perspectives.

Peas provide gastrointestinal health, lower glycemic index, and antioxidant properties, as well as containing phytochemicals with potential anticarcinogenic, hypocholesterolaemic, and prebiotic effects.

Review of the health benefits of peas (Pisum sativum L.).

Peas are rich in nutrients and bioactive ingredients, offering various health benefits and potential applications as a sustainable and functional grain.

A Comprehensive Review of Pea (Pisum sativum L.): Chemical Composition, Processing, Health Benefits, and Food Applications

Pigeon pea is a low-cost, high-quality protein food and feed for tropical and subtropical populations, with potential health benefits and improved animal feeding performance.

The Dietary Use of Pigeon Pea for Human and Animal Diets

Pea protein ingredients offer high protein content, sustainability, affordability, and hypo-allergenicity, making them a popular alternative to conventional proteins in innovative food and beverages.

Pea protein ingredients: A mainstream ingredient to (re)formulate innovative foods and beverages.

Lactic fermentation of pea flour improves the digestibility of peas, increasing their nutritional value and reducing bloating.

Effect of Lactic Fermentation and Cooking on Nutrient and Mineral Digestibility of Peas

Peas are allergenic and should not be marketed as hypoallergenic, and their increasing use in processed foods may necessitate reconsidering their placement on priority allergenic food lists.

A perspective on pea allergy and pea allergens

Pea protein is a promising, high-quality protein and functional ingredient in the food industry due to its low allergenicity, high protein content, availability, affordability, and sustainable crop derived from a sustainable crop.

The Current Situation of Pea Protein and Its Application in the Food Industry

Peas are a sustainable, nutritious, and functional alternative protein source for the global food industry, offering unique attributes in egg replacement solutions, high-protein ingredients, and gastrointestinal health benefits.

Pea: A Sustainable Vegetable Protein Crop

Pea protein isolates show promise as a nutritious, non-GMO, and allergen-free alternative to animal-based proteins, with extraction techniques and cultivar impacting their performance in food applications.

Pea protein isolates: Structure, extraction, and functionality

Plant protein sources show health-promoting effects on glycemic, appetite, cardiovascular, and muscular outcomes, but more research is needed to validate health claims.

Exploring Health-Promoting Attributes of Plant Proteins as a Functional Ingredient for the Food Sector: A Systematic Review of Human Interventional Studies

Pea protein offers a low-cost, nutritionally balanced alternative to soybean or animal proteins in functional food applications due to its composition, structure, and processing conditions.

Composition, physicochemical properties of pea protein and its application in functional foods

Peas have varying nutritive value for nonruminant diets, with potential limitations due to potential harmful constituents and low digestibility.

Nutritive value of peas for nonruminant diets

Extruding pea seeds improves digestibility and growth performance in pigs, but reduces daily gain and feed conversion ratio during growing phase.

The influence of dietary raw and extruded field peas
(Pisum sativum L.) on nutrients digestibility and performance
of weaned and fattening pigs

Dietary pea fiber supplementation improves glucose tolerance and may protect against high fat diet-induced gut microbiota and mucus layer alterations in glucose intolerant rats.

Dietary Pea Fiber Supplementation Improves Glycemia and Induces Changes in the Composition of Gut Microbiota, Serum Short Chain Fatty Acid Profile and Expression of Mucins in Glucose Intolerant Rats

Dietary pea inclusion in broiler chicken diets improves meat quality and performance without significantly changing growth performance or carcass yields.

Growth performance and carcass and meat quality of broiler chickens fed diets containing micronized-dehulled peas (Pisum sativum cv. Spirale) as a substitute of soybean meal.

Feeding raw and processed peas to broilers reduces jejunal mucosal surface area and glucose transport capacities, potentially impacting gut function and animal health.

Effect of feeding soybean meal and differently processed peas on intestinal morphology and functional glucose transport in the small intestine of broilers

Pea protein's emulsification properties are influenced by origin, processing, and environmental conditions, but there is potential for further improvement through complexation, glycosylation, and enzymatic hydrolysis.

Recent progress in the utilization of pea protein as an emulsifier for food applications

A diet containing yellow field peas reduced postprandial insulin response in dogs despite continued obesity, indicating improved metabolic health.

Effect of an extruded pea or rice diet on postprandial insulin and cardiovascular responses in dogs.

Peas and pea ingredients in the human diet

These studies suggest peas and pea ingredients offer various health benefits, including gastrointestinal health, lower glycemic index, antioxidant properties, and high-quality protein content, while also being sustainable and functional in the food industry, though some concerns about allergenicity exist.