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Story by Melissa Triebwasser | Sept 16, 2024 / Twisted Sifter
There has been hope that cultured meat, or animal products that were grown in a lab rather than on a farm, would change consumer habits and held reduce climate change. But thus far, the introduction of such products has not had the sweeping impact on our diets that people initially hoped.
For a myriad of reasons, including complex regulatory processes, difficulty in obtaining approval in several countries, and – maybe most importantly – taste, the industry has yet to take off in America or across the world. There were hopes that lab-grown meat could help ease environmental issue and satisfy ethical issues among animal lovers, but that has not been the case because the product, and the experience associated with it, just isn’t good enough.
“The experience was closer to eating tofu or seitan than chicken,” reported Joe Fassler in an essay for the New York Times back in February. “It would never satisfy a hard-core meat eater.”
But that doesn’t mean that the need to consume less meat has changed, or that people aren’t aware of the negative impact consumption of red meat has on the environment.
“The participants confirm to each other that their food practices are not more problematic than food practices among people who have cut out meat entirely. The truth is that red meat has a far greater climate footprint than both avocados and vegan products.”
Thomas Skelly, a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Food and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen spoke after conducting a study that followed six focus groups with Danish consumers about their attitudes towards their diets and the environment.
“And vegans do not necessarily eat more avocados or processed products than meat eaters.”
But that doesn’t really matter, according to the paper.
Though flavor is generally the first consideration when introducing a new food product to consumers, cultured meat faces a unique set of challenges.
This is not something meant to be a new product altogether or stand out for its deliciousness, instead, it’s asked to replace something that has a rabid fanbase and is very well-known among consumers.
This has led those that create and study cultured meat to focus more on replicating things like the flavor and texture of the product it’s aiming to replace rather than invent something new that can stand on its own.
But a new study out of South Korea is suggesting a different course of action.
“Most previous studies have focused on strategies to mimic the properties of meat depending on the cell mass and differentiation,” the new study explains.
“However, several food-related characteristics of meat, such as texture and flavor, are associated with blood and various biological tissues such as muscle, fat, and connective tissues. Because research on cultured meat is still at the stage of cell culture scale rather than tissue culture level, there are limitations in mimicking the […] properties of meat.”
In the study, the team elected to focus on improving the aromatic and flavor profile of cultured meat rather than the typical emphasis on the texture and structure of slaughtered meat.
They quickly realized that the outcome would be keyed by replicating the Maillard reaction – a chemical process that occurs when cooking, in which reducing sugars in the food react with amino acids, resulting in changes in color, flavor, and aroma.
“Hundreds of different flavor compounds are created,” explains Science of Cooking. “These compounds in turn break down to form yet more new flavor compounds, and so on. Each type of food has a very distinctive set of flavor compounds that are formed during the Maillard reaction.”
To achieve the reaction, the research team developed a temperature-responsive scaffold for the cultured meat cells.
Constructed from gelatin and containing a switchable flavor compound, the resulting cultured meat cells “release[s] the conjugated flavor group […] upon [being] heated at the cooking temperature, 150°C,” the paper reports.
But does it work?
The results of the study, which included the use of an “e-nose” to compare the aroma of the lab-grown beef to its store-bought counterpart, suggests that it does indeed.
“[Our] results confirm that the SFC [switchable flavor compound] can contribute to the controlled release of the meaty flavor compounds from the scaffold, eventually enabling the fabrication of flavor-rich cultured meat,” the authors write.
We might still be years away from lab-grown beef hitting the supermarket shelves though.
Though the team found their findings “remarkable”, there are concerns, according to the paper. “This study still encounters a critical limitation. It should be cautious to regard the used reagents as food-grade.”
Considering that a reagent is a substance or compound added to a system to cause a chemical reaction, it might be best to stay away for now.
Lab grown beef? Cultured Meat?
Maybe we can just stick to the falafel for now.
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