**6. Food applications of pea proteins**

The application of bioactive ingredients (hydrophobic, hydrophilic compounds, minerals, and probiotics) is less due to their instability, less bioavailability, and unsuitable flavors in the food system. So, encapsulation can be a promising technique for solving these problems related to bioactive ingredients. Nowadays, there is an increase in research for pea protein as encapsulating materials, because of its health benefits, nil genetic modifications, and hypoallergenic issues [76]. As many researchers have recognized the importance of natural polymers for preparing biodegradable packaging and since pea protein acts as a biodegradable and biocompatible natural polymer, it can be used for producing biodegradable films. It can provide promising possibility for the application of pea proteins for making biodegradable films in industrial-scale food production.

There are extrusion techniques which include low-moisture extrusion (LME, 40%) and high-moisture extrusion (HME, >40%), these techniques are widely used in commercial food production. LME is generally used for preparation of snacks and HME is used basically for meat analogue preparation. The research of pea protein based extruded products is very common nowadays and many researchers reported that pea protein was used in different starches like rice starch [77–79] wheat starch [80] and corn grits [81] for preparing protein-fortified extruded snacks by LME, and the results concluded that pea protein-fortified extruded products exhibits high content of protein and possess balanced amino acid profile in comparison to pure extrudates of starch.

There are many studies which report that by the addition of pea protein in cereal products can improve the nutritional value of the product because pea protein provides the essential amino acids and improve the texture of cereal product [4, 82–85]. The plant protein can be used as substitute for animal protein for meeting nutritional need of lacto-vegetarians and thus can make the food healthier. Several researchers are working on partly or fully substitution of dairy proteins with pea protein and the impact on taste and structure of these products [86–90].
