Search Results (109)

The increasing demand for sustainable pet-food solutions has driven interest in alternative protein sources, as researchers seek to avoid allergenic foods while maintaining optimal pet nutrition. This review explores recent scientific publications, patent trends, and market trends relating to various alternative protein sources, including plant-based, aquatic, insect-derived, and cell-based sources. Their nutritional composition, functional properties, and potential benefits for pet health were assessed. Plant-based proteins, such as soy, pea, and lentils, provide essential amino acids and functional properties suitable for meat analogues. Microalgae and seaweed offer rich sources of omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and bioactive compounds. Insect-based proteins such as black-soldier-fly larvae and mealworms are highly digestible and rich in essential nutrients, with additional benefits for gut health. Emerging cell-based proteins present a novel, lab-grown alternative with promising sustainability and nutritional advantages. While these protein sources offer significant benefits, challenges related to digestibility, palatability, regulatory approval, and consumer acceptance must be addressed. The emphasis of the present research is on current developments for industry uses and future potential. The analysis sheds light on the contributions of alternative protein sources to the promotion of sustainable and nutrient meals for pets. Full article

Dietary choices and patterns have enormous consequences along the lines of individual, community, and planetary health. Excess meat consumption has been linked to chronic disease risk, and at large scales, the underlying industries maintain a massive environmental footprint. For these reasons, public and planetary health experts are unified in emphasizing a whole or minimally processed plant-based diet. In response, the purveyors of ultra-processed foods have added “meat alternatives” to their ultra-processed commercial portfolios; multinational corporations have been joined by “start-ups” with new ultra-processed meat analogues. Here, in our Viewpoint, we revisit the 1990s food industry rhetoric and product innovation, a time in which multinational corporations pushed a great “low-fat transition.” We focus on the McLean Deluxe burger, a carrageenan-rich product introduced by the McDonald’s Corporation in 1991. Propelled by a marketing and media-driven fear of dietary fats, the lower-fat burger was presented with great fanfare. We reflect this history off the current “great protein transition,” a period once again rich in rhetoric, with similar displays of industry detachment from concerns about the health consequences of innovation. We scrutinize the safety of carrageenan and argue that the McLean burger should serve as a cautionary tale for planetary health and 21st century food innovation. Full article

Amid growing global concerns about environmental sustainability and food security, plant-based meat substitutes have emerged as a promising alternative to conventional meat. However, current formulations, especially those based on soy protein isolate (SPI) often fail to replicate the desired texture and structural integrity. To address this limitation, this study aimed to evaluate the use of whole yeast powder (WYP) combined with SPI for producing plant-based meat analogues via high-moisture extrusion. Seven groups were designed: a control group with 0% WYP, five treatment groups with 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% WYP, and one reference group containing 20% yeast protein powder (YPP). Although lower in protein content than yeast protein powder (YPP), whole yeast powder exhibits superior water-binding capacity and network-forming ability owing to its complex matrix and fiber content. At a 20% inclusion level, whole yeast powder demonstrated a higher fibrous degree (1.84 ± 0.02 vs. 1.81 ± 0.04), greater hardness (574.93 ± 5.84 N vs. 531.18 ± 17.34 N), and increased disulfide bonding (95.33 ± 0.92 mg/mL vs. 78.41 ± 0.78 mg/mL) compared to 20% YPP. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) revealed that whole yeast powder facilitated the formation of aligned fibrous networks and enhanced water binding. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed an increase in β-sheet content (0.267 ± 0.003 vs. 0.260 ± 0.003), which contributed to improved protein aggregation. Increasing the WYP content to 30–40% led to a decline in these parameters, including a reduced fibrous degree (1.69 ± 0.06 at 40% WYP) and weakened molecular interactions (p < 0.05). The findings highlight 20% WYP as the optimal substitution level, offering superior textural enhancement and fibrous structure formation compared to YPP. These results suggest that WYP is not only a cost-effective and processing-friendly alternative to YPP but also holds great promise for scalable industrial application in the plant-based meat sector. Its compatibility with extrusion processes and ability to improve sensory and structural attributes supports its relevance for sustainable meat analogue production. Full article

The escalating environmental and health concerns regarding conventional meat consumption have intensified the global search for sustainable dietary alternatives. Plant-based foods and meat substitutes have emerged as promising solutions. These products aim to replicate the sensory and nutritional attributes of meat while mitigating ecological impacts. This review examined the current scenario of plant-based foods and meat substitutes, focusing on their environmental footprints, health implications, innovative ingredient developments, consumer acceptance, and the use of analytical tools in quality control. Life cycle assessments indicate that plant-based foods and meat substitutes significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and water consumption compared to animal-based products. These alternatives offer benefits like lower saturated fat. However, they still struggle to match the amino acid composition of meat. Consumer acceptance is influenced by factors including taste, texture, and cultural perceptions, and still requires sensory improvement. Innovations in ingredient sourcing, like the use of legumes, mycoproteins, and fermentation-derived components, are enhancing product quality and diversity. Furthermore, analytical tools such as electronic noses, electronic tongues, spectroscopy, and chemometric methods ensure product consistency and fulfill consumer expectations. By synthesizing interdisciplinary insights, this review offers an integrated perspective to guide future research and development in the field of meat alternatives. Full article

This review highlights the latest research on dietary fibre (DF) applications in meat and meat analogues, providing insights into their role in shaping future food innovations. DFs provide significant long-term health benefits, such as better gut health, lower cholesterol levels, and possible protection from metabolic diseases. They also enhance the texture, juiciness, and overall quality of plant-based meat alternatives (PMAs) and traditional meat products. Among the most effective fibres, cereal-derived fibres, fruit- and vegetable-derived fibres, and legume-based fibres have been shown to improve water-holding capacity (WHC) and emulsification properties, enhancing mouthfeel and juiciness. New processing methods, such as enzymatic hydrolysis and extrusion, can change how fibres work. By combining various fibre sources with innovative processing methods, the food industry can create meat and PMA products that are not only healthier but also tastier and more sustainable. Full article

The increasing demand for sustainable dietary options has intensified the development of plant-based meat analogues. Despite growing market availability, these products often fail to replicate conventional meat’s sensory and nutritional properties. Solid-state fermentation (SSF) has emerged as a promising biotechnological approach to enhance the quality of plant-derived protein ingredients. This review summarizes recent findings on the use of SSF in meat analogue production, focusing on microbial strains, substrate selection, and fermentation conditions. The reviewed studies indicate that SSF improves protein digestibility, enhances essential amino acid profiles, reduces anti-nutritional factors, and generates desirable flavour compounds. Furthermore, SSF offers advantages over submerged fermentation in energy and water efficiency, supporting its application in sustainable food processing. The findings highlight SSF’s potential to address key limitations of current meat alternatives and its relevance for developing nutritionally adequate and sensory-appealing products. Integration of SSF into plant-based protein processing may play a critical role in advancing environmentally friendly protein systems. Full article

Recent advances in the production of meat and dairy analogues and plant-based products have introduced new food safety challenges, as these foods are susceptible to contamination by both pathogens and spoilage microorganisms originating from raw materials and processing environments. In addition, plant-based analogues often exhibit physicochemical properties such as high water activity, near-neutral pH, and elevated protein and moisture content that favour the survival and growth of microorganisms, as evidenced by the detection of Salmonella sp., Listeria monocytogenes, and Enterobacteriaceae in commercial products. While extrusion and thermal processing effectively reduce microbial loads, these treatments may not inactivate all spores, including spore-forming bacteria like Bacillus cereus and Clostridium spp. Critical findings seem to highlight that some protein isolates are particularly prone to higher microbial contamination, and that outbreaks linked to pathogens such as Salmonella, L. monocytogenes, and E. coli have already occurred in plant-based analogues in Europe and North America. Here we discuss the microbiology and sources of microbial contamination of these products. In addition, we further discuss the integration of non-thermal technologies and biocontrol methods, such as protective cultures, bacteriocins, and bacteriophages, as promising approaches to enhance food safety while addressing clean-label demands. Full article

The aim of this work was to estimate the impact of polypropylene (BOPP) films with active coatings applied on their surface on the quality of sliced, plant-based meat analogue (PBMA) sausages. The coatings contained zinc oxide nanoparticles and geraniol (AG) or zinc oxide and carvacrol (AC) as active compounds. The outcomes of the study indicated that the total microbial count of ready-to-eat, sliced PBMAs bought from a local store was high, confirming that the plant-based sausage must have been contaminated during slicing. It was shown that BOPP bags and spacers covered with the AG layer reduced the number of mesophilic bacteria in sliced plant-based sausages stored for 96 h, proving that this packaging material maintained the microbial quality of PBMA samples. It has to be underlined that neither S. aureus, L. monocytogenes, Salmonella sp. nor coliform bacteria were detected in the plant sausage samples after 48 h and 96 h of storage in the BOPP packaging covered with the AG and AC coatings, confirming that these slices were acceptable for consumption. However, the textural analysis showed that bags coated with the AC layer were the best bags for 96 h of storage. Full article

Animal proteins have been used in the formulation and production of food products for many centuries, which has mainly been attributed to their excellent functional properties. However, the rearing of animals has been associated with an increased emission of greenhouse gases that contributes to global warming and climate change. Consequently, there has been a drive toward using alternative proteins, such as those from plant origins, which have been found to be more sustainable. A climate-smart strategy to contribute toward a reduction in meat consumption has been the formulation of plant-based meat analogues. The lower acceptance of these meat substitutes is mainly attributed to their sensorial, nutritional, and textural properties, which fail to resemble conventional meat. As such, there is a knowledge gap in understanding key aspects that come into play while formulating meat alternatives from plant sources by deciphering the link between the techno-functional attributes of protein and the various quality attributes of these food products. Therefore, this review aims to discuss the technical advances that have been made when it comes to plant-based meat substitutes that could drive consumer acceptance. There is also a huge impetus to diversify plant protein usage in meat analogues beyond soy and pea, which requires the applications of underutilised plant proteins to overcome their functional and organoleptic shortcomings, as well as the techno-economic challenges that have also been addressed in this work. Additionally, the nutritional equivalency of plant-based meat alternatives is reviewed, and the ways in which these products have been fabricated are discussed to assess the opportunities and challenges that exist in current product formulations. Other key determinants, such as environmental sustainability factors, prospective supply chain issues, and the market adoptability of plant-based meat alternatives, are also discussed. This review emphasises the fact that interlinking technical challenges with consumer insights and socioeconomic perspectives for protein transition is critical to ensure that innovations successfully land in the market. Full article

Due to its endocrine-disrupting effects and neurotoxicity, Bisphenol A (BPA) has been banned from some products and some countries; therefore, alternatives are increasingly being used. Studies have been performed to evaluate internal Bisphenol analogue (BP) exposure in children, adolescents and adults; however, little information on elderly age groups is available. In this study, a cohort of 161 senior residents aged 60–70 years, from a coastal residential district in Jiangsu Province of China, was selected, and blood samples were collected from these individuals to evaluate internal BP exposure. The serum concentrations of eleven BPs (BPA, BPB, BPC, BPE, BPF, BPS, BPZ, BPP, BPAF, BPAP and TBBPA) were quantitatively determined by HPLC-MS/MS. In parallel, demographic and dietary surveys were conducted, and the potential association between BP levels and dietary habits was analyzed. Noteworthily, the detection rate of 10 BPs in serum samples exceeded 78%. Of all the BPs, BPA displayed the highest level, followed by BPAF, BPB, and BPS. Interestingly, the levels of most types of BPs in males were higher than those in females, and individuals above 65 years of age exhibited significantly higher BPA levels. Dietary analysis indicated a significant correlation between meat consumption and BP levels, implying that this is an important source of BP exposure. The current study uncovers previously unknown aspects of BPs exposure, characterized by high internal BP levels in the elderly, and risk factors such as gender and meat consumption. This offers valuable insights for preventing region-specific BP exposure in the elderly. Full article

Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is a valuable ingredient in plant-based foods such as meat and dairy analogues. However, its typical taste and aroma are considered off-flavours in these food applications, representing a bottleneck during processing. Breeding is needed to develop varieties with minimal off-flavours and high protein content. The genetic regulation of these traits is underexplored. To dissect their genetic architecture, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS). A total of 245 faba bean accessions (the CGN population) were genotyped using the 90K-SPET targeted assay. These accessions were phenotyped in 2021 and 2022 in the Netherlands for protein, oil, fatty acids, lipid-derived products, phenolic acids, flavonoids, and tannins. The CGN population showed large phenotypic variation and moderate-to-high narrow-sense heritability for most traits. The growing environment significantly affected all traits, with trait-specific genotype-by-year (GxY) interactions. Condensed tannins and fatty acids were the most stable across the two years and had the highest heritability estimates (h² > 0.6). GWAS identified a total of 148 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) loci in 2021 and 167 in 2022. Key candidate regulators included genes involved in lipid biosynthesis (ATS2, KAS, LPP), amino acid transport (CAT4) for protein storage, zero tannins locus-1 (zt-1), and regulators of the phenylpropanoid pathway, such as a shikimate kinase gene and transcription factors bHLH137-like and MYB. These results pave the way for validation studies and biotechnological applications to improve the quality of faba bean-based foods. Full article

The market for plant-based analogs for meat is growing exponentially. In addition to motivations related to the search for health benefits, the consumption of such products is justified by the sustainability of their production since the use of non-renewable resources and the emission of polluting gases is lower than their animal-origin equivalents. However, little information regarding the global panorama of the sustainability of plant-based meat analogues is available, mainly due to the diffuse distribution of food matrices used across the planet. In this sense, this narrative review aimed to describe the state of the art regarding the use of resources and sustainability of the inputs used as protein sources in the manufacture of plant-based meat analogues. From the review carried out, it was possible to observe that the biggest problem in producing these plant-based alternatives lies in using inputs that are not native to the countries where the products are marketed, especially in the case of South American countries. Ingredients widely used in the production of these analogues find better cultivation conditions in the northern hemisphere, as in the case of lentils, peas and chickpeas; thus, South American markets depend on imports, reducing the sustainability of the products. Full article

The aim of this study was to compare the physical, sensorial, and microstructural properties of selected meat products with their plant-based alternatives to assess how closely the alternatives mimic the original products. Six meat analogue products, including Frankfurter sausage (SuA), steak (StA), Hungarian sausage (KA), minced meat (MA), salami (SaA), and burger (BA), were compared with their corresponding meat products (SuM, StM, KM, MM, SaM, and BM, respectively). The study measured colour indicators, texture parameters, sensory attributes, and microstructural properties. The redness values (a*) of the external surfaces of SuM and KM, as well as the hardness of MM, were similar to those of their alternative products, with no statistically significant differences (p > 0.05). Sensory evaluation revealed similar ratings for two attributes: product similarity and overall appearance. However, significant differences were found in the descriptors for animal character and meat taste. Full article

Background/Objectives: The environmental problems associated with meat production, the pain and distress of animals, and health problems have contributed to the increased appreciation of meat alternatives. Methods: The review of patented inventions presenting plant-based meat analogues (PBMAs) issued in the years 2014–2023 was conducted according to PRISMA statements across the ISI Web of Science, as well as Google Patents and Espacenet Patent Search engines. Results: The analysis of 183 patents showed an increase in patent numbers in the years 2020–2022, with the greatest number of patents developed by teams consisting of two authors. The authors and patent applicants were mainly affiliated with the United States, while Société des Produits Nestlé S.A. emerged as the leader among applicant institutions. The International Patent Classification (IPC) codes were given to 177 patents, which were mainly classified as Human Necessities (Section A). In total, inventors mentioned 184 taxa, including 28 genera, 1 section, 144 species, 5 subspecies and 6 varieties of vascular plants. The majority of taxa showed a high edibility rating and belonged to perennials, mainly herbaceous plants representing the families Fabaceae, Poaceae and Brassicaceae. The analysis of patents showed that plants are a promising source of protein, lipids, fibre, polyphenols, starch and gum in meat analogues. At the same time, the noticed slight use of numerous taxa, despite the substantial content of valuable constituents as well as high edibility rates, presumably might be caused by their underutilization in numerous regions of the world. Conclusions: The direction of future studies should focus on searching for novel plant-based meat analogues based on underutilized, promising plant sources and investigations of their usefulness. Full article

The functional properties of pumpkin seed proteins remain unutilized in numerous food and industrial applications. Several current approaches aim to improve the functional properties of pumpkin seed proteins, allowing their innovative potential to develop and modify significantly. Several strategies can be implemented to alter the functional properties of proteins isolated from pumpkin seeds. The first is enzymatic hydrolysis, regardless of whether, proteases may free peptide binding and profoundly impact the protein structure and functionality. Thermal treatment can include heating and cooling to replace protein conformation and increase solubility, emulsification, and gelation properties. Chemical modification techniques, including acylation and glycation, can also be used to improve stability, viscosity, and foaming ability. Functional properties and, where possible, ingredients with many applications may include exceptional possibilities for proteins modified in food preparations, such as dairy replacements, plant-based meat analogues, and free gluten that have an outstanding aspect, satisfactory quality, and nutritional profiles. As multiple different proteins act as precursors of active peptides, they can also be used to generate bio-specific foods. This review briefly provides information about various types of protein extraction techniques and functional properties that are modified by different types of processing technologies. Full article