Nearly every kind of replacement meat, from ground beef to fish sticks, is now readily available for purchase by consumers. The scientists developed a design meat alternative made of soy and wheat gluten with the extrusion procedure. Prepared pieces of the replacement and chicken meat were then ground up and broken down with an enzyme that human beings use to absorb food.
The researchers experiments revealed that meat replacement peptides were less water-soluble than chicken peptides and were not also taken in by human cells.
Plant-based meat supplies less protein to human cells than chicken meat
The push for plant-based meat has actually already gained a lot of support. Its not understood how much of the protein makes it into human cells, in spite of the reality that protein-rich plants like soybeans are typically used as parts.
Scientists report that proteins in a model plant-based alternative were not as easily soaked up by cells as those from meat in a recent research study published in the American Chemical Societys Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
A meat substitute (left) resembles chicken meat (right), but its proteins are not absorbed also by human cells. Credit: Adapted from Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2022, DOI: 10.1021/ acs.jafc.2 c01711.
Almost every sort of replacement meat, from ground beef to fish sticks, is now offered for purchase by customers. Plants are dried into a powder and integrated with spices to mimic the look and texture of the genuine thing. Generally, the combinations are then heated, moistened, and executed an extruder.
These products are typically thought about to be much healthier than animal meats because the plants used to produce them are rich in protein and low in unhealthy fats. Nevertheless, lab tests have shown that the breakdown of replacement proteins into peptides is inferior to that of proteins from meat.
Osvaldo Campanella, Da Chen, and coworkers wished to go a step further and see if human cells can soak up similar amounts of peptides from a model meat option as they can from a piece of chicken.
The scientists created a model meat alternative made of soy and wheat gluten with the extrusion process. When cut open, the product had long fibrous pieces within, much like chicken. Cooked pieces of the alternative and chicken meat were then ground up and broken down with an enzyme that people use to absorb food.
In vitro tests showed that meat-substitute peptides were less water-soluble than those from chicken, and they also were not soaked up too by human cells. With this brand-new understanding, the researchers say the next action is to identify other ingredients that might help enhance the peptide uptake of plant-based meat alternatives.
The study was funded by the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
Recommendation: “Characterization and Cellular Uptake of Peptides Derived from In Vitro Digestion of Meat Analogues Produced by a Sustainable Extrusion Process” by Da Chen, Diana Rocha-Mendoza, Shengyue Shan, Zachary Smith, Israel García-Cano, Julie Prost, Rafael Jimenez-Flores and Osvaldo Campanella, 22 June 2022, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.DOI: 10.1021/ acs.jafc.2 c01711.