Vegetarians rejoice! A new meat substitute has been developed to look, feel and (most importantly) taste like real meat!
Meat production is counterproductive. Fattened animals have to eat 5-8 kilos of grain just to produce 1 kilogram of meat.
“Our goal is to develop a vegetable surrogate for meat that is both juicy and fibrous, but that also has a pleasant flavor. The product should have a long shelf life, it should not be more expensive than meat, and be suitable for vegetarians and allergy sufferers.“ explains Florian Wild, researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Freising and Like Meat spearhead.
But what sorcery do you employ to turn veggies into meat? Wild and his team devised a process developed for meat substitutes.
Water and plant proteins are boiled and slowly cooled down. As the temperature drops, the protein molecules form chains, which lead to a fibrous structure as that of meat.
The veggie cutlet factory prototype is located in the IVV factory. The system can produce 300 to 500 kilos of meat per day on a system that is no longer than 2 tennis tables!
“Consistency and texture are already superb. There is still a little work to do on the flavor. By the end of the project term, in one year, the meat substitute from the land should be every bit as good as a genuine cutlet, and it should come directly from the machine, ready-to-eat.” assures Wild
The experts will present their new product at the Anuga FoodTec trade fair from March 27 through March 30 in Cologne.
Source: Fraunhofer
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