Browsing by Subject "meat alternative"

High moisture extrusion (HME) can be used to create meat-like structures in plant-protein-based products. This study aimed to describe sensory and textural properties of minced-meat-like products made from a legume ingredient and a plant fibre concentrate using HME. Extrudates with two different ratios of the ingredients, both with and without added hydrocolloid, were produced for the study. Sensory profiling (n = 9) was conducted as generic descriptive analysis (GDA). Instrumental texture profile analysis (TPA) as well as a consumer study (n = 55) were done to complement the data. GDA attributes, TPA parameters and consumers’ hedonic responses were compared, and connections were studied. Also, TPA results were compared to those from sensory analysis, aiming to find connections between instrumentally and sensorially measured parameters. The dry ingredient ratio clearly affected hedonic responses, while the effect of added hydrocolloid was smaller. Several descriptive sensory attributes, such as bitterness, gumminess, cohesiveness and stickiness, were related to the hedonic responses to smell, texture and taste. Plant fibre concentrate content was also clearly linked to these descriptive attributes. Samples perceived as gummy, cohesive, less bitter and less sticky got higher hedonic responses, but TPA parameters could predict neither GDA attributes nor hedonic responses. The results of this study showed that certain ingredients have a clear impact on sensory attributes and therefore hedonic responses of the final products. To further improve the consumer acceptance, pre-processing of the ingredients could be studied. To explain the differences in textural properties, more research on the molecular level assembly of specifically fibres and carbohydrates in the matrix is needed.