What Is Vital Wheat Gluten?

Vital wheat gluten is a kind of natural plant protein obtained from wheat, corn and other grains through scientific processing. The crude protein content is more than 75%. Vital wheat gluten has strong water absorption, viscoelasticity, film formability, adhesive thermal coagulation, liposuction and emulsification, and other physical properties. It is also rich in functional amino acids such as glutamine. At present, glutamic acid is widely used in the food processing industry and animal nutrition and feed industries to improve the taste and nutritional characteristics of food, and to increase the nutritional value of feed. It has good application prospects.

The application of vital wheat gluten in the food industry：

1. New pasta foods such as bread and cakes

In recent years, with the increase of people's awareness of health care, consumers' demand for coarse grains has increased, which has led to innovations in the formulation and processing technology of the pastry industry, and the types of pastry products have become increasingly abundant.

Vital wheat gluten has good water holding capacity and viscoelasticity, which can maintain the moisture inside the bread, delay the aging and taste of the bread, make the bread have a uniform texture, moderate elasticity and better taste, and at the same time improve the nutritional balance of the pastry products.

2. Traditional pasta foods such as dumplings and noodles

Adding vital wheat gluten can increase the protein content in the noodles, increase the hardness, viscoelasticity, recovery, and maximum shear force of the noodles, and promote the formation of the gluten network structure. In addition, the addition of gluten to the dough can also change the rheological properties of the flour, so as to reduce the stability time of the dough, reduce the degree of weakening, and improve the overall index.

3. Meat food

The application of vital wheat gluten in animal meat products can improve the viscoelasticity and thermosetting properties of meat products, and play the role of adhesive.

4. Edible film production

In the early days, plastic products were commonly used in food packaging, but plastic products have the disadvantages of being difficult to degrade and affecting the inherent flavor of packaged food. Vital wheat gluten has the advantages of uniform texture, strong mechanical properties, relatively insoluble in water, degradable, and biocompatible, and can be widely used in the production of edible film.