Development of standardized methods to assess the physicochemical properities of plant-based meats (2021-2023)

Introduction

We proposed standardized testing protocols to characterize important physicochemical attributes of beef burgers and their plant-based (PB) analogues, including appearance, cooking loss, water holding capacity, and textural profile, which can be used to quantify the changes in the quality attributes of plant-based meat analogues when they are cooked and to establish the similarities and differences of their physicochemical attributes to real meat products. The protocols are relatively simple to perform and provide quantitative data for the assessment. Their efficacy was established by measuring and comparing the physicochemical properties of 10 commercial real and PB beef burgers. A principal component analysis model showed appreciable differences in the cooking loss and texture profile properties, indicating that further research is still required to create high-quality PB meat products.

Reference

Vu, G.; Zhou, H.*; McClements, D. J. Impact of cooking method on properties of beef and plant-based burgers: Appearance, texture, thermal properties, and shrinkage. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research 2022, 9, 100355. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2022.100355.

Zhou, H.; Vu, G.; Gong, X.; McClements, D. J. Comparison of the cooking behaviors of meat and plant-based meat analogues: Appearance, texture, and fluid holding properties. ACS Food Science & Technology 2022, 2 (5), 844-851. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsfoodscitech.2c00016.