There is great interest in the development of plant-based alternatives to meat products to meet the rising demand from vegans, vegetarians, and flexitarians. Ideally, these products should look, feel, taste, and behave like the meat products they are designed to replace. In this study, we investigated the impact of simulated freeze-thaw and cooking treatments on the properties of plant-based adipose tissues formulated using high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) or gelled emulsions (GEs). The HIPEs consisted of 75% oil, 2% soybean protein, 23% water, while the GEs consisted of 60% oil, 2% soybean protein, 2% agar and 36% of water. Low melting point (soybean oil) and high melting point (coconut oil) oils were used to create emulsions with either liquid or partially crystalline lipid phases at ambient temperature, respectively. In general, GEs were harder than HIPEs, and emulsions containing coconut oil were harder than those containing soybean oil at ambient temperatures. The thermal behavior of the plant-based adipose tissue was compared to that of beef adipose tissue. Beef adipose tissue was an opaque whitish semi-solid at ambient temperature. These properties could be mimicked with all types of HIPEs and GEs. The structure of the beef adipose tissue was resistant to freezing/thawing (-20/+20 °C) but not cooking (90 °C, 30 min). Soybean HIPEs and GEs were relatively stable to simulated cooking but not freeze-thawing. Conversely, coconut HIPEs and GEs exhibited the opposite behavior. These results have important implications for the formulation of alternatives to animal adipose tissue in plant-based foods.
Keywords: adipose tissue; coconut oil; plant-based food; soy protein; temperature stability.