Vegan sausages and friction
By R. David Whitby, Contributing Editor | TLT Worldwide November 2022
New experiments aim to improve the mouthfeel of vegan sausages by simulating the mouth environment in the lab.
Everyone knows that various sausages taste differently, depending on the type of sausage and the country in which it is made. But why do many vegan and vegetarian sausages taste differently to those that contain meat?
A vegetarian is a person who doesn’t eat any foods that come from the slaughtering of animals or made using processing aids from slaughter. This includes meat and meat products and may include animal leather. A vegan is a vegetarian who, in addition to not eating meat and meat products, does not eat eggs or dairy products, such as milk and cheese.
Not only do various sausages taste differently, they also cook differently. For example, the sizzle of a meat sausage in a frying pan or grill, or on a barbeque, differs greatly from that of a vegan sausage. This is because the proteins, fats and oils in meat emulsify in a completely different way than plant proteins, fats and oils. Sausages made using plant-based ingredients have always been very different than those made from meat.
The complex constituents and their structures make working out how to make plant-based sausages taste and cook more like meat-based ones very difficult. Now, a team in the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany1 has investigated how the feel of vegan and vegetarian sausages in someone’s mouth can be better approximated to that of meat-based sausages.
Thomas Vilgis, the leader of the research group says, “The mouthfeel of a sausage is a complex matter. Ultimately, there are many different physical processes involved here on different length scales, from the first bite to the mastication into a pulpy mass. This makes it very difficult for vegetarian and vegan alternatives to come close to the animal product.”
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Laboratory experiments involved applying a number of different mechanical forces to three types of sausages from the same manufacturer and measuring their physical properties. These measurements were intended to simulate the mouth environment, including compression, stretching and friction.
The researchers developed a model with which it is possible to make predictions about the physical behavior of sausages, such as during chewing. Simulations such as these have not been commonly used previously. The food industry has mainly used trial and error to improve the texture of vegan and vegetarian foods.
The researchers found that meat-based sausages slid more easily under friction than the plant-based ones. This could be because meat has more fat that isn’t bound up in its molecular structure so is more freely available to reduce friction. The meat sausages also were more elastic under compression, possibly due to different protein structures.
The study investigated the proteins found in meats and in plants, and the sequences of amino acids in them. One observation was that the key to mouthfeel is the network formed by the many proteins. This means that the network in meats needs to be replicated as much as possible with vegan or vegetarian alternatives, in order to achieve a similar mouthfeel. “In the end, though, we can only ever approximate the mouthfeel of meat sausages with vegan and vegetarian alternatives because plant proteins are structured very differently than those of meat,” explains Vilgis.
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The researchers also simulated the process of chewing, to determine the forces with which the different sausages can be deformed. These measurements provided understandings of how the sausages perform, both when chewed and when handled with the tongue.
The results of the study have already been used by one sausage maker, as a basis for adapting its recipes for vegetarian and vegan sausages, to improve their taste and cooking behavior to be more like meat sausages.
REFERENCE
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Ghebremedhin, M., Bächle, M. and Vilgis, T. A. (2022), “Meat-, vegetarian-, and vegan sausages: Comparison of mechanics, friction, and structure,”
Physics of Fluids, 34 (4), 047112.
David Whitby is chief executive of Pathmaster Marketing Ltd. in Surrey, England. You can reach him at pathmaster.marketing@yahoo.co.uk.