How could meat alternative be useful in providing all the essential elements that are available in meat-based products

How Could Meat Alternative Be Useful In Providing All The Essential
Elements That Are Available In Meat-Based Products
Dr. Nancy Agens, Head,
Technical Operations, FoodResearchLab
info@foodresearchlab.com
In Brief
Meat alternatives are the imitations of
plant-based meat products, and it
becomes mainstream due to
environmental concerns and health
awareness among consumers. There are
various types of ingredients such as plant
protein-based meat, textured vegetables
protein-based meat, and soy proteins have
been tried in replicating the taste and
texture of conventional meats which can
replace fillings in Baked Products, patties
in burger and pepperonis/toppings in
pizzas. With the help of advanced
technologies and processing techniques,
it is possible to make meat alternatives
with all the essential attributes that are
present conventional meat but with
certain limitations.
elements of meat, but the factor that leads
to this is because, plant proteins have low
fat, low calorie, and consumers are more
focused in avoiding natural resources
depletion and to reduce greenhouse gas
emission. At present, Meat Alternatives
are available in the market, and the
products are plant-based meat alternatives,
which provides the same quality of taste
and textures as like conventional meat.
However, meat alternatives are widely
distributed in western countries; the rest of
the world will become a potential market
in the near future.
I. INTRODUCTION
Health awareness among the people and
sustainable food brought an innovative
idea in Developing Plant Protein-Based
Meat. Due to increasing animal diseases
and strong demand for meat consumptions,
a huge population have been moving from
meat to the consumption of vegetable
proteins in food products. To meet such
huge demand food researchers introduced
meat alternatives which are basically
plant-based meat. Meat alternatives are
also defined as meat analog, which refers
to the replacement of meat, and it has
become the current trend due to health
awareness among common people and for
a better environment.
However, consumers have a doubt that
how could a plant protein can have all the
Fig 1. Meat Alternative Ingredients
II. BASE INGREDIENTS FOR MEAT
ALTERNATIVES:
Soy And Textured Vegetable Proteins:
The introduction of meat alternatives into
the food market was started in the early
1960s with the base ingredient soy protein.
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In olden days, soy protein was the popular
ingredient in making meat alternatives like
tofu and fermented soy cake as the process
development of these products will be
simple fermentation technique or
processing technique. Later textured
vegetable protein has become a versatile
food ingredient in making meat alternative
as it provides meat-like texture, and it has
similar protein quality that conventional
meat has. However, there were multiple
barriers in accepting plant-based meat
because of rich soy flavours due to
isoflavones, lipoxygenases and saponins
and thus limits the use of meat alternatives
made from soy proteins.
Due to the rising demand for healthy food
habits, Extruded Meat Alternatives entered
into the mainstream in the early 21 st
century, and the sustainability implications
continued to increase in finding
alternatives to conventional meat. The
advancement in food technology and
manufacturing has introduced the extruded
meat alternative food products that can
accurately imitate the texture and taste of
conventional meat products, and the
current interest has focussed on the
Development Of Meat Alternatives from
plant-based meat though the technology
can outcome the existing limitations and
imitate conventional meat products.
Plant-based meat:
The advanced Plant-Derived Ingredients
have been used in plant-based meat
products which are imitating animalderived
meat, and the development of
replicating quality meat attributes often
said as the challenges for food product
developers. Almost every plant proteinbased
meat alternative has a different
popular ingredient, while the ingredients
are made from extracted plant protein and
are typically have high sodium.
III. LIMITATIONS
For any advancement in product
development and process development in
the food and beverages industries, there
comes limitation, and it can only be taken
care of by food researchers and
professionals in food industries. Likewise,
meat alternatives demonstrate certain
limitations during the phase of the
production process, and processing
ingredients which include over processing
leads to less nutritional attributes, high salt
content and genetically modified
organisms may produce specific effects in
the human body during prolonged usage.
There are certain facts that the plant
protein-based meat products are
inadequate in providing essential amino
acids and trace elements, and it becomes
very challenging to produce or develop a
product that imitates meat nutritional
attributes.
The challenges associated with any new
innovative developments will be cleanly
absorbed, and our experts will provide
solutions at the food research lab.
• To promote texture, Plant-Based
Meat should be cross-linked and unfolded
by using methods like spinning and
extrusion.
• In addition, a fungus produced
filamentous mycoprotein can be used for
fibrous texture for the production of plantbased
meat. The mycoprotein has a unique
pattern of amino acids, low in fat, high in
fibre and protein becomes added
advantage.
• For solidifying the structure, plantbased
meat should undergo heating,
cooling, and/or coagulation treatment.
• To retain high protein content, the
recipe should always be associated with
water-binding capacity and associated
Rheological Properties.
IV. CONCLUSION
In summary, it is so evident that there is a
rising demand in producing meat
alternative products and at the same time,
there are concerns over selection suitable
plant protein sources in making a
significant product for consumers
concerned about healthy foods and a
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sustainable environment. None the less,
there are limited meat alternatives
available in the market and mainly for
plant-based meat. In the food research lab,
we have carried out several experiments in
overcoming the challenges, and some of
the key points are mentions as well. Our
experts have developed techniques and
methods in Producing A Quality Meat
Alternative Product by overcoming the
reported challenges as it took several
months of work for our research and
development team to Ensure The Standard
Quality, taste and texture that are
equivalent to conventional meat.
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