10 years later, the proportion of textured vegetable protein substitute for meat will rise to 10%

Abstract: According to the release of "China Plant Meat Market Insights", it is estimated that the global meat market will reach 1.4 trillion US dollars in 10 years, and the market share of "alternative meat (textured vegetable protein)" will be less than the current one. 1% to 10%, which is more than one trillion yuan.

So, what technology will these "alternative meats" use to cultivate extraction and production? The researcher answered like this:

"'Future Food', based on technologies such as synthetic biology, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, and featuring healthier, safer, more nutritious, more delicious, more efficient, and more sustainable, will become a solution Effective approaches to issues such as global food supply and quality, food safety and nutrition, dietary patterns and spiritual enjoyment drive the development of food science and technology to high technology."

Keywords: textured vegetable protein, meat, soy protein, protein meat

Related products for this article: Textured vegetable protein

The development of "alternative meat" is the general trend

According to experts, with changes in the global climate and ecological environment, as well as the continuous growth of the population, we are facing the impact of some unnutritious, unhealthy, and unsafe meat products. Therefore, the development of "alternative meat" is the general trend. In fact, in recent years, scientists around the world are also working hard to find and research new alternatives, eliminate the supply crisis of meat food, and finally realize the sustainable development of alternative meat.

Experts who have been engaged in food protein structure and function research for many years share with us. Currently, alternative meat mainly includes textured vegetable protein meat and cell culture meat. In terms of development and application, the texture vegetable protein meat technology is relatively mature. The raw material of vegetable protein meat such as silk-drawn protein, textured protein and granular protein are produced on the basis of extruder. The technology is very mature. It has been commercialized as early as more than 20 years ago. It was originally used as raw material for meat and poultry products such as beef, pork, and chicken. Part of the replacement is used in meat and poultry products. However, cell culture meat is currently unable to be marketed in the short term due to issues such as laws and regulations, technology, and cost.

Experts revealed that the differences between different parts and different types of meat products are mainly manifested in fiber structure, fat content, etc. It is very difficult to realistically simulate different parts or different types of meat products. At present, the only relatively successful product in the development of plant meat is hamburger products.

Why are these products more successful? Because the minced meat products have a relatively strong flavor, and there are a lot of other vegetables, condiments and grains in the burger, which are mixed and eaten, so that consumers have a low degree of recognition of the color, flavor and texture of the meat patties.

So far, there has been no successful commercial development of whole meat, let alone the problem of different parts of meat. First of all, the diversity of meat products makes products have different characteristics, that is to say, the meat quality, appearance (such as fiber shape), water retention, and flavor of the product are all very important influencing factors.

"Vegetable protein meat is vegan plant meat. Because it is made of reorganized and shaped like structured protein, it is essentially a reorganized food, that is, the nutritional value of the finished food can be customized on demand, and it is a good nutrition. And the carrier of healthy food.” Experts say that as the vegetarian meat industry develops more mature and stable, the vegetarian meat processing technology, including raw protein tissue technology, molding technology, and flavor enhancement technology, has greatly improved. The products are bound to be popular and have broad development prospects.

"Alternative meat" rarely has the conditions to produce hazards

Plant protein is widely regarded as an important ingredient in the next generation of meat substitute products. So, does vegetable protein meat produce harmful substances and endanger food safety?

According to experts, the vegetable protein used in vegetable protein meat is mainly organized protein and various types of vegetable protein for filling or other purposes. Taking soy protein as an example, the normal extrusion processing, heat treatment, enzyme treatment and structural design of soybean protein are relatively mild. For example, even the extrusion processing, although the temperature is relatively high, the time is very short, which may induce Certain Maillard reaction or oxidation reaction, but the time is short, and the accumulation of potentially harmful products is limited.

"Other treatment methods such as enzymatic digestion treatment will hardly produce harmful substances. Unless it is excessive heat treatment in the later period, or very long storage, leading to more significant Maillard reaction and oxidation reaction, etc. Therefore, it is said that soybeans in food The normal industrial processing of protein has few conditions for producing harmful substances.” How to develop and utilize new protein resources has become an important issue, especially the application of food processing technology to plant-derived proteins.

"At present, to imitate different types of animal meat in different parts, these surrounding tissues also need to be further developed and mature. For example, if you eat snowflake beef, snowflake is adipose tissue." However, due to many factors that need to be considered, it is completely realized in actual development and production. Simulating the taste of a particular product is currently difficult to achieve.

The application of vegetable protein meat extraction still needs to solve many problems

In many articles, some scholars have pointed out that in the process of eating vegetable protein meat, there is often a beany flavor or the problem of unbalanced flavor of soybean food. For artificial meat or vegetarian meat, what special effects are there to remove the beany flavor and make the product more authentic?

"This is a technical difficulty in the research and development process of vegetarian meat products, and there is still no good solution." Zhou Jingwen said, after all, it is vegan vegetable protein meat. The main raw material of vegetable protein, no matter what kind of protein, is More or less have their own flavor. Products made of soy protein will have a soy flavor, whether it is flavored or spiced, chewing for a long time, it will have the flavor of soy products.

According to experts, real meat has a very good fibrous structure, so the main purpose of vegetable protein processing is to make vegetable protein form a structure similar to animal muscle tissue through physical processing, and its texture, shape, and flavor and taste There is still a long way to go between realism and real meat. At present, various research institutions and companies are also studying how to further realise from the level of raw materials.

"Cell culture meat should in principle be a technical approach that is closer to real meat, but at present this technology is still at the level of culturing animal cells and has not yet effectively formed muscle tissue." Experts said, in addition, we know that breeding chickens and walking on the ground The texture and taste of chickens are very different. This is not the relationship between cultivation and breeding, but only the difference caused by sports. At present, cultured meat has only completed the level of cell culture, has not yet entered the level of muscle tissue, and has not yet reached the level of exercise or not. All these issues need to be further studied.