According to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, plant-based meat alternatives are getting more comparable to meat in some areas, but often lack the flavor and texture.
Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering PhD student Ana Maria Velasquez-Giraldo is developing a new high protein plant-based meat analog with increased fat through extrusion, under the advice of Osvaldo Campanella and Dennis R. Heldman. Using specialized equipment at the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis (CEMAS) is helping ensure that the product is tasty as well as nutritious.
“Typical plant-based diets do not always achieve the recommended intake of essential amino acids, so we are developing plant-based food alternatives with better quality proteins and increased nutritious lipids, for better flavor and texture,” said Velasquez-Giraldo. “Plant-based proteins alternative foods can provide more sustainable options, so by creating products that are nutritional and tasty using sustainable approaches and sources with a lower carbon print is positive for humans and the environment.”
Meat production has a known impact on the environment, such as the emission of greenhouse gases. Plant-based alternatives allow for more sustainable options. Overconsumption of meat can also cause health problems, while incorporating a plant-based protein alternatives and other plant base compounds into diets is believed to provide health benefits.
Velasquez-Giraldo uses a manufacturing process called extrusion to create a meat analog that has a taste and feel like beef or chicken products. Extrusion is a process used to cook raw materials (e.g., flours, protein concentrate powder) by applying external heating and pushing a material through rotating screws that provide mechanical energy, and ultimately through a die to give the product the desired shape. Extrusion has been used for many years typically to make pasta or animal feed, but Velasquez-Giraldo is using the technology to promote fibrous structures that improve the quality of high-protein alternative products. The high temperatures in cooking section of the extruder, combined with the low temperature of the die, enable the formation of the desired fibrous structures that ultimately control the texture of the final product.
At CEMAS, Velasquez-Giraldo can get a closer look at the final texture of her plant-based alternative products. She uses the Heliscan technology to perform micro-computed tomography (microCT) to see if the analog’s fibers align correctly to create a favorable texture. The technology is allowing scientists to gain valuable insight from internal structures to explore and validate a wide range of material properties, investigate suitable extrusion conditions, classify samples and see properties that are not easily visible to the human eyes but the strongly impact texture.
The alignment of the fibers is important to creating a tasty product. The Heliscan takes 3D images of samples and creates a digital recreation of the whole muscle meat analog. Other imaging techniques create 2D images, but it is not possible to see how the fibers align into a 3D macrostructural network. Traditional characterization methods have proven challenging, like using approximate measurements from samples with no way to quantify them.
“Having this equipment here is an advantage and will push the field forward to better visualization of fibrous material in the final product,” said Velasquez-Giraldo. “This is directly tackling a need in the research and many others will benefit from these image processing algorithms.”
The Heliscan is part of more than $40 million in equipment housed at CEMAS, including state-of-the-art electron microscopes.
"We're very pleased that the Heliscan can be used for imaging that fosters insights contributing to human health, as well as sustainable environmental impacts", said Sarah Mikula, Heliscan instrument manager.
Velasquez-Giraldo expects that food tomography analysis from microCT scans will be utilized more in food engineering and food science research in the coming months and years, improving the creation of sustainable and nutritious plant-based meats.
Article written by the Center for Electron Microscopy and AnalysiS (CEMAS)