Production of meat analogue product and investigation of texture characteristics and fatty acid profile compared to meat product

Introduction: The consumption of plant proteins in food products has increased over the years due to animal diseases, high demand for healthier foods and economic reasons (Joshi and Kumar 2015). Therefore, developing and innovating a new food product that meets consumer demand is very challenging. Meat analog products available in the market are plant meats that have the same quality as common meats. In addition to these traditional Asian products, dry texturized vegetable protein (TVPs) was the first example of meat analogs obtained from extruded defatted soybean meal, soy protein concentrate, or wheat gluten (Kinsella and Franzen 1978). TVP is a key plant protein food that is used to replace a part of meat in burger products in order to increase water storage capacity and protein content, create a meat-like texture (such as softness and doughy texture) and reduce the amount of saturated fat and product cost (Bayer and Dilger 2014). Soy is a plant from the Legumineuse family and its scientific name is Glycinemaxl. There are three different forms of soy protein depending on different concentrations (50% to 90%), which are: soy flour, soy protein concentrate and soy protein isolate (SPI) (Tensaz and Boccaccini 2016). Soy protein isolate is an economical and reliable protein source that can be used as a substitute for meat and dairy proteins to control costs and improve the nutritional value of various food products (Thrane et al. 2017). Plant products with a fatty acid (FA) profile that is usually rich in saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and rich in Tran's fatty acids (t-FAs) are healthier than animal meat products (Cayres et al. 2021). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to produce a meat analog product based on soy protein isolate and to investigate the properties after cooking and evaluate the color index, as well as to determine the texture profile and fatty acid composition in plant-based burgers (PB), and then compare it with meat burgers (MB).
Material and methods: The production of meat and vegetable burgers was carried out in the pilot located in Fars Agricultural and Natural Resources Education Center. In order to produce MB, first, the beef was ground in a meat grinder with a 5 mm mesh, during the production stage to prepare the MB treatment, first the minced meat entered the mixer and in followe, minced onion and solid oil and then powdered ingredients including spices, salt and bread flour were added in certain proportions. At the end, to obtain a uniform dough, water and ice were added to the mixture so that by adding water, the weight of the dough reached 100 units, and stirring continued for 10 minutes until a uniform dough was created. In order to prepare PB, soy protein isolate was first macerated in water for ten minutes. Then hydrogenated soybean oil was combined with macerated soybeans and onions and ground by a meat grinder. Next, the ground ingredients were put into the mixer and all the powdered ingredients were added in certain proportions and the rest of the steps were done in the order of the MB. After the stages of dough production, MB and PB were molded using a burger machine with 100 gram molds. Then the burgers were packed in polyethylene/polyamide bags with a thickness of 75 microns and stored in a cold room at -18°C for 3 months. The samples were evaluated in the first, second and third month of storage to measure the characteristics after cook, color indices (L*, a*, b*) and texture profile; each treatment was done in triplicate, also, the fatty acid profile of MB and PB samples was investigated.
Results: Based on the results, it was observed that the rate of cook loss and shrinkage in MB was higher than that of PB throughout the storage period (p<0.05). Cooking loss in PB and MB decreased from 19.13 and 23.74% to 8.48 and 21.36%, respectively. Also, the shrinkage parameter decreased from 5.42% to 2.86% in PB and from 19.39% to 9.13% in MB during the storage period (p<0.05). In the analysis of the L* index, it was observed that the highest and lowest values in this index respectively correspond to the sample of raw-MB (45.441.96) in the third month and cooked-PB (20.551.97) was in the second month of maintenance and two indices a* and b* had a significant increase and decrease, respectively, as a result of cooking two burger samples (p<0.05). The highest amount of a* index was in cooked-MB (14.331.97) in the third month of storage and the lowest level of this index was in raw-PB (1.111.89) in the third month of storage. The results of texture profile analysis between two burger samples showed that There was a significant difference in the parameters of springiness and cohesiveness during the storage period between the meat and vegetable burger samples (p<0.05) but there was no significant difference between other parameters hardness, adhesiveness, chewiness and gumminess (p0.05). The highest amount of unsaturated fatty acids in PB was detected with 78.08%, and the highest amount was related to linoleic acid (-6) (49.83%); while the amount of unsaturated fatty acids in MB was equal to 41.4%.
Conclusion: Today, the modern world population, which tries to reduce the consumption of meat in their daily diet, is relatively aware of healthy and sustainable foods. Using healthier plant-based protein sources to replace meat proteins can reduce the risk of stroke, diabetes and cancer. Therefore, in the present study, a type of plant-based protein called soy protein isolate was used as a substitute for meat in burgers and then the characteristics after cooking, color, texture profile and fatty acid profile in PB were investigated and their results were also compared with MB. The results showed that the characteristics such as texture and color in PB are not significantly different from MB, and even in cases such as cooking loss and the amount of shrinkage, it was more favorable than MB. Also, in the analysis of the fatty acid profile, it was observed that PB are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, which have higher health benefits compared to MB. As a result of these observations, it can be stated that the production of plant-based burgers has potential for development in the industry and can be a promising alternative to meat proteins.