Meatless burgers could be made tastier, juicier and more digestible with protein-glutaminase treatment. Credit: FreeToUseSounds, Pixabay, CC0 (creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
A trio of food scientists from the Amano Enzyme Inc. innovation center in Japan have discovered that adding protein-glutaminase treatment to plant-based meat alternatives can make the resulting product juicier. In their study, reported in PLOS ONEKiyota SakaiI, Masamichı’ Okada and Shotaro Yamaguchi, tried several approaches to improve the juiciness of textured vegetable proteins before settling on protein-glutaminase, better known as EC 3.5.1.44.
Food scientists have been trying for several years to create a plant-based material with roughly the same taste, texture and juiciness as real meat, specifically hamburger. But these qualities of real meat have proven difficult to imitate. Currently, most of these products rely on highly saturated oils to give plant-based meat products their flavor. But the products have a widely known bad bean taste.
Protein glutaminase is an enzyme that interacts with glutamine in a unique way: it converts parts of it into glutamic acid, an interaction that is already used to convert ammonia into other substances. But since it only modifies part of the proteins it interacts with, the other parts are not affected. In food, this means that the taste remains unchanged. It is this factor that led researchers to test its impact on plant-based alternatives to meat.
Testing involved creating hamburger-style patties, then grilling them in the traditional way and eating them. They found that the results were juicier than untreated ones. They also found another positive attribute: the processed fake burgers also had less bad bean taste.
The researchers also tested the treated burgers more directly by measuring their fluid retention abilities and found that the protein-glutaminase treatment actually allowed them to retain more fluid. They used electron microscopy to better understand how protein glutaminase allowed the hamburger to retain more liquid and release amino nitrogen.
Further testing is needed before the process can be used on commercial products.
More information:
Kiyota Sakai et al, Protein Glutaminase Improves Water/Oil Holding Capacity and Bean Flavor Profiles of Plant-Based Meat Analogues, PLOS ONE (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294637
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