Nowadays scientific communities and food manufacturers are interested in bringing natural compounds, such as dietary phenolics, to consumers demanding health benefits. A high protein, but low-carbohydrate and low-fat diet is becoming a trend worldwide. Bovine whey proteins are appreciated protein ingredients. Dietary phenolics sourced from plant-based food have an increasing demand due to their great potential health benefits. Whey proteins, as well as isolated protein fractions, can interact with various forms and sources of dietary phenolics, via non-covalent physical complexation and/or covalent conjugation, forming reversible complexes and/or irreversible conjugates.

To better understand their interaction mechanisms at molecular levels and combination strategies at mixture levels for the development of dietary phenolics functionalized whey protein ingredients, this review describes the scientific studies regarding molecular levels interactions (bottom-up), and mixture levels combinations (top-down) to create functionalized whey protein particles, as well as their stability during food processing, storage (distribution), bioaccessibility and bioavailability during human digestion.

Whey proteins and isolated whey protein fractions, can fully interact with various forms and sources of dietary phenolics in aqueous under different pH conditions, forming complexes and/or conjugates, generating protection, delivery of dietary phenolics, leading to improvement in bioaccessibility and bioavailability of phenolics. Combination of whey proteins with dietary phenolics can be viewed at a molecular level (bottom-up) and a mixture level (top-down), both of which are developed to create novel functional whey protein ingredients. Owing to the interference of other coexisting elements, the findings from molecular level interactions cannot be extended to mixture level combinations.