Transition towards sustainable protein sources – the potential of Lupin

Laura Roman is a Novo Nordisk postdoctoral scientist working at the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University (Denmark). Her current research efforts center on the understanding of the molecular details of structure formation in plant-based food systems. Her work lies at the interface between molecular structures and physical chemistry of biomaterials. Laura has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph (Canada) for more than 2 years, where her work focused on carbohydrate biochemistry and processing for structure-function and improved health.

There is an urgent need to deliver novel sustainable, climate friendly food solutions to accommodate to a healthy, less resource-intensive plant-based diet. A robust supply of nutritious and sustainable protein is becoming an increasingly critical need, both for human and animal consumption. Finding alternative sources of plant-proteins is then of outmost importance. This presentation will focus on the potential of legumes with focus on Lupin. Legumes are treasured, because of their high protein content, and their potential for re-balancing ecosystems. Lupin is one such legume that can be grown under different environmental conditions and seems a promising protein rich source with high nutritional value. However, the presence of antinutritional components, such as alkaloids is a drawback in their use as human food.

This work aims at identifying and developing varieties of blue lupin (Lupinus angustifolius) that can be suitable for their cultivation in Danish land, based on their robustness towards Danish climate conditions and processing performance into different plant-based food products and ingredients.

By exploiting different prebreeding blue lupin materials and commercial lines we expect to identify more suitable and robust genotypes with improved protein quality for both food and feed and, at the same time, reduced amount of toxic secondary metabolites, that may negatively impact their use for food and processing quality.

This project also focuses on understanding climate robustness in blue lupin seeds by evaluating the phenotypic traits of different genotypes/cultivars for climate tolerance using typically stress related physiological parameters and characterize both changes in protein composition and functionality as well as nutrient quality. The combined responses in morphology, physiology and protein amount and composition and presence of other metabolites will provide traits for genomic studies and will orientate the future breeding process for optimal protein quality.