Texture profile analysis and rheology of plant-based and animal meat

Abstract

• To mimic animal meat, plant-based meat must match mouthfeel, taste, and texture. • To quantify texture, we tested eight meats using texture profile analysis and rheology. • Sample stiffnesses varied from 419 kPa for plant-based turkey to 57 kPa for tofu. • Animal turkey, sausage, and hotdog ranked within these plant-based extremes. • Plant-based meat can replicate the full stiffness spectrum of comminuted animal meat. Plant-based meat can help combat climate change and health risks associated with high meat consumption. To create adequate mimics of animal meats, plant-based meats must match in mouthfeel, taste, and texture. The gold standard to characterize the texture of meat is the double compression test, but this test suffers from a lack of standardization and reporting inconsistencies. Here we characterize the texture of five plant-based and three animal meats using texture profile analysis and rheology, and report ten mechanical features associated with each product’s elasticity, viscosity, and loss of integrity. Our findings suggest that, of all ten features, the stiffness, storage, and loss moduli are the most meaningful and consistent parameter to report, while other parameters suffer from a lack of interpretability and inconsistent definitions. We find that the sample stiffness varies by an order of magnitude, from 418.9 ± 41.7 kPa for plant-based turkey to 56.7 ± 14.1 kPa for tofu. Similarly, the storage and loss moduli vary from 50.4 ± 4.1 kPa and 25.3 ± 3.0 kPa for plant-based turkey to 5.7 ± 0.5 kPa and 1.3 ± 0.1 kPa for tofu. All three animal products, animal turkey, sausage, and hotdog, consistently rank in between these two extremes. Our results suggest that–with the right ingredients, additives, and formulation–modern food fabrication techniques can create plant-based meats that successfully replicate the full viscoelastic texture spectrum of processed animal meat.