The worldwide food production industry produces vast amounts of plant waste material each year ranging from fruit peels to vegetable pomace, and from oilseed press cake to cereal bran. Embedded within all this wasted biomass is an under-utilized source of valuable proteins. Although there exist well-established procedures for their separation from plant materials, the current methods employ numerous amounts of harmful organic solvents, huge energy requirements, and severe conditions that damage both proteins and the environment. A paradigm shift to greener extraction techniques is required in order to exploit biomass as an excellent source of valuable proteins.