The challenges related to plant-based meat texture revolve around replicating the taste, texture, and mouthfeel of traditional meat. For example：
1. Texture replication: One of the biggest challenges is replicating the texture of animal-based meat. Meat has a unique texture that is difficult to replicate with plant-based ingredients. Achieving the right balance of tenderness, juiciness and chewiness is a complex task.
2. Mouthfeel: Plant-based meats should have a similar mouthfeel to animal-based meats. This includes factors such as fat distribution, moisture content and fibre structure. Creating a realistic mouthfeel often requires extensive research and development.
3. Fibrous structure: Animal-based meats have a fibrous structure that gives them a desirable texture. Plant-based alternatives must mimic this fibrous structure to provide a similar bite and texture. Formulating plant proteins and other ingredients to create a meat-like fibrous texture can be challenging.
4. Binding and elasticity: Animal-based meats have natural binding properties due to the presence of collagen and other proteins. Plant-based products often require ingredients and processing techniques to provide similar binding and elasticity to hold together and retain their shape during cooking.
5. Cooking properties: Plant-based meats must cook and behave similarly to animal-based meats. They should respond to heat in a similar way, including browning, caramelisation and Maillard reactions. Achieving the right texture during cooking, such as a crispy crust or a tender centre, is a challenge.
6. Sensory factors: Texture perception is influenced by factors such as aroma, flavour and appearance. Plant-based meats must not only mimic texture, but also provide a similar sensory experience in terms of flavour and appearance, which can be challenging to achieve.
Overcoming these challenges requires continuous research, innovation and advances in food science and technology. Many companies and researchers are actively working to improve the texture of plant-based meat products to provide consumers with more realistic alternatives. When it comes to using food additives to enhance the texture of plant-based meat, binders are some options you can consider. In order to attain the desired mechanical strength and texture and to maintain the shape of the given meat and seafood substitutes, a binder or binding agent is used. Binding agent is a single edible food substance or a mixture of edible food substances that can hold components of the foodstuff through its thickening, dispersing or gelling property.
Binding agents are crucial components for plant-based products resembling ground and bound meat products, like burgers, patties, meat balls, chicken nuggets, fish fingers or crab cakes. TVPs usually form the basis of the mentioned products. As TVP alone, analogue to ground meat, cannot form a coherent product, the use of binders is unavoidable to provide adhesion for the TVP particles. These binding agents can also provide for emulsion stability to prevent the leakage of oil, and for mechanical stability during further processing, transport, or optional storage. Commercial TVP can be made from soy protein, pea protein and wheat gluten. Soy protein and wheat gluten are listed as allergen containing food ingredients, therefore pea-protein based TVP has increases its popularity and worldwide production as the main source of allergen-free TVP product. However pea-based TVP has far inferior protein quality especially the amount of essential amino acids in comparison to soy protein. Food manufacturers are trying to increase greater amount of essential amino acids of pea-based TVP meat analogue by incorporation of more nutritious food proteins however this approach commonly lead to inferior textural profile of the products. For emulsion type meat analogue such as plantbased sausage, binding agents like methylcellulose, carrageenan and/or modified starches are generally used. For minced meat analogue and related products such as burger patty, meat ball, nugget, crab cake and fish sticks, common binding agents are egg white in powder or liquid form and methylcellulose for vegetarian and animal-free type products respectively. In these products, the binding agents help to improve the texture and appearance of the product by gluing the minced particles together. The functionality of hydrocolloids such as methylcellulose, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose,long fibre cellulose, corn zein and alginates, to bind TVP for improving oil encapsulation and reducing oil absorption, is well documented.
One particularly preferred binder for meat substitutes is methylcellulose, due to its very unique properties.Owing to its high viscosity in cold state when mixed with hydrated TVPs and other ingredients, these mixtures can be easily shaped/molded in the form of patties, meatballs, etc. Methylcellulose, which, unlike most other common thickening agents, becomes more viscous upon heating and thus mimics proteins, which also tend to solidify upon heating due to denaturation. During cooling viscosity is again reduced.Methylcellulose is not, however, a natural substance and is synthesized by chemical modification, namely etherification, of cellulose. Consumers often reject synthetic food additives,and there is therefore a need for more natural, label friendly ingredients that can replace methylcellulose in plant-based meat surrogates as binding agent. Label friendly ingredients are components that do not require an E-number on its label, and such components generally are derived from a natural source with low level or no chemical treatment.
Transglutaminase can help improve the texture and meat-like mouthfeel of vegan and vegetarian emulsified sausages. It can help improve the texture and cohesion of plant-based burgers and meatballs. Transglutaminase is protein cross-linking enzyme , have been used extensively in several food products to improve the texture.There are examples of using transglutaminase (TG) to improve the texture from plant proteins. Here are a few examples:
Plant-based meat alternatives: TG can be used in the production of plant-based meat substitutes to improve their texture and create a more meat-like structure. It can help bind the plant proteins together, resulting in a firmer and more cohesive texture. This can be beneficial in creating plant-based burgers, sausages, or nuggets that mimic the texture of traditional meat products. Merit Functional Foods claimed that combining their Peazazz pea protein isolate ingredient with transglutaminase enzyme creates a binder capable of replacing methylcellulose.
2. Vegan cheeses: TG can also be used in vegan cheese production. Plant-based cheeses often rely on ingredients like cashews, almonds, or soy to create a creamy base. TG can be added to these ingredients to enhance their texture and create a cheesy, sliceable consistency. It helps to bind the proteins and fats together, creating a cohesive structure similar to dairy cheese.
Transglutaminase, which is preferably used also in the production of the vegetable protein granule. Transglutaminase (EC 2.3.2.13) catalyzes formation of covaient bonds between glutamine and lysine amino acid residues in protein molecules. The enzyme is active within a pH range of 4 to 9 and a temperature range of 2 to 60°C, and is inactivated at a temperature above 80°C. The activity of transglutaminase action is greatest at a pH of 5 to 8 and at a temperature of +50°C.
