Mimicking mechanics: A comparison of meat and meat analogs

St. Pierre, Skyler R.; Kuhl, Ellen

doi:10.1101/2024.09.23.614641

Cited by 3 publications

References 81 publications

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The mechanical and sensory signature of plant-based and animal meat

St. Pierre,

Darwin,

Adil

et al. 2024

npj Sci Food

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Eating less meat is associated with a healthier body and planet. Yet, we remain reluctant to switch to a plant-based diet, largely due to the sensory experience of plant-based meat. Food scientists characterize meat using a double compression test, which only probes one-dimensional behavior. Here we use tension, compression, and shear tests–combined with constitutive neural networks–to automatically discover the behavior of eight plant-based and animal meats across the entire three-dimensional spectrum. We find that plant-based sausage and hotdog, with stiffnesses of 95.9 ± 14.1 kPa and 38.7 ± 3.0 kPa, successfully mimic their animal counterparts, with 63.5 ± 45.7 kPa and 44.3 ± 13.2 kPa, while tofurky is twice as stiff, and tofu is twice as soft. Strikingly, a complementary food tasting survey produces in nearly identical stiffness rankings for all eight products (ρ = 0.833, p = 0.015). Probing the fully three-dimensional signature of meats is critical to understand subtle differences in texture that may result in a different perception of taste. Our data and code are freely available at https://github.com/LivingMatterLab/CANN

show abstract

The mechanical and sensory signature of plant-based and animal meat

St. Pierre,

Darwin,

Adil

et al. 2024

npj Sci Food

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Eating less meat is associated with a healthier body and planet. Yet, we remain reluctant to switch to a plant-based diet, largely due to the sensory experience of plant-based meat. Food scientists characterize meat using a double compression test, which only probes one-dimensional behavior. Here we use tension, compression, and shear tests–combined with constitutive neural networks–to automatically discover the behavior of eight plant-based and animal meats across the entire three-dimensional spectrum. We find that plant-based sausage and hotdog, with stiffnesses of 95.9 ± 14.1 kPa and 38.7 ± 3.0 kPa, successfully mimic their animal counterparts, with 63.5 ± 45.7 kPa and 44.3 ± 13.2 kPa, while tofurky is twice as stiff, and tofu is twice as soft. Strikingly, a complementary food tasting survey produces in nearly identical stiffness rankings for all eight products (ρ = 0.833, p = 0.015). Probing the fully three-dimensional signature of meats is critical to understand subtle differences in texture that may result in a different perception of taste. Our data and code are freely available at https://github.com/LivingMatterLab/CANN

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The mechanical and sensory signature of plant-based and animal meat

St. Pierre,

Darwin,

Adil

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Eating less meat is associated with a healthier body and planet. Yet, we remain reluctant to switch to a plant-based diet, largely due to the sensory experience of plant-based meat. The gold standard test to analyze the texture of food is the double mechanical compression test, but it only characterizes one-dimensional behavior. Here we use tension, compression, and shear tests along with a constitutive neural network to automatically characterize the mechanics of eight plant- and animal-based meats across the entire three-dimensional spectrum. We discover that plant-based sausage and hotdog, with stiffnesses from 35.3kPa to 106.3kPa, successfully mimic the behavior of their animal counterparts, with stiffnesses from 26.8kPa to 115.5kPa, while tofurky with 167.9kPa to 224.5kPa is twice as stiff, and tofu with 22.3kPa to 34.0kPa is twice as soft. Strikingly, the more processed the product--with more additives and ingredients--the more complex the mechanics: The best model for the softest, simplest, and oldest product, plain tofu, is the simplest, the classical neo Hooke model; the best model for the stiffest products, tofurky and plant sausage, is the popular Mooney Rivlin model; the best models for all highly processed real meat products are more complex with quadratic and exponential terms. Interestingly, all animal products are stiffer in tension than in compression, while all plant-based products, except for extra firm tofu, are stiffer in compression. Our results suggest that probing the fully three-dimensional mechanics of plant- and animal-based meats is critical to understand subtle differences in texture that may result in a different perception of taste. We anticipate our models to be a first step towards using generative artificial intelligence to scientifically reverse-engineer formulas for plant-based meat products with customer-friendly tunable properties.

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

Dunne,

Darwin,

Perez Medina

et al. 2024

Preprint

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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±41.7kPa for plant-based turkey to 56.7±14.1kPa for tofu. Similarly, the storage and loss moduli vary from 50.4±4.1kPa and 25.3±3.0kPa for plant-based turkey to 5.7±0.5kPa and 1.3±0.1kPa 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 formulae--modern food fabrication techniques can create plant-based meats that successfully replicate the full viscoelastic texture spectrum of processed animal meat.

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Mimicking mechanics: A comparison of meat and meat analogs

Cited by 3 publications

References 81 publications

The mechanical and sensory signature of plant-based and animal meat

The mechanical and sensory signature of plant-based and animal meat

The mechanical and sensory signature of plant-based and animal meat

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

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