Vegetarian steak

The world may have gained a few more vegetarians recently, following the announcement that the World Health Organization has classified red meat as a probable human carcinogen. But that may not mean giving up eating ‘meat’, with news that a meat replacer based on legumes, which is not inferior to steak, could be available in the future.

Food technologist Professor Atze Jan van der Goot, from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has developed a new technology that is fabricating the ingredients from legumes, like soy beans, in such a way that a ‘meat structure’ develops with the fineness and fibre structure of a steak. This concept is the basis for the development of a vegetarian steak. The product makes animal ingredients, such as egg or whey, unnecessary and does not have any size limitations.

The researchers have built a working prototype for the production of vegetable pieces of meat. Using a method known as shear cell technology, the device can mimic meat-like structures from soy proteins in a piece of a few kilograms (60 x 30 x 3 cm). The structure achieved is finer than that reached by the current extrusion method, and the method is more energy efficient compared to existing production methods for meat replacers.