头图

Plant-Based Foods |Development status and trend of plant-based food industry

2024.09.02

In recent years, with the improvement of people's health awareness, plant-based food is popular with consumers in SIAL in South China(Shenzhen). From the perspective of nutrition, plant-based food has excellent nutritional and health effects, among which plant protein can meet the nutritional needs of amino acid and protein. In addition, plant protein has low saturated fatty acids, zero cholesterol, no antibiotics and other characteristics.

 

​"Plant-based food" is a relatively new term that represents an aggressive green diet movement that uses plant-based ingredients. It is defined as a product made directly from plant raw materials or their processed products as the main raw materials, with or without other ingredients and food additives (including nutritional fortifying agents), and processed. The product form, texture and other sensory characteristics of the product have similar characteristics with the corresponding animal origin food.

 

 

The rise of plant-based food

 

​Traditional plant-based foods have been around for centuries. They are made of wheat gluten, soybean protein, mushroom, rice and other ingredients as the main raw materials, after gel or fermentation process processing, adding certain seasonings.

 

​Tofu is considered the oldest plant-based food, with its origins dating back as far as the Song Dynasty. Tofu is made through two processes of pulping and molding. The finished tofu product has a gel-like high absorption structure, but there is still a big gap with meat. After tofu, Danbei is another plant-based food made from plant protein, which has a more compact structure compared to tofu. Since then, people have produced fuzhu from soybean protein, which is a thin skin formed on the basis of boiling soybean milk.

 

​There is a big difference between plant-based food and traditional bean products such as tofu, Danbeizhu and fuzhu. Plant-based food takes plant protein powder as raw material, produces organized protein or drawn protein through extrusion organizing process, and then adds natural spices, vegetable oil and plant extracted pigments through rehydration, cutting and mixing, seasoning and molding processes. The resulting product has an appearance, flavor, and texture similar to animal meat.

 

 

Plant-based food production technologies are constantly evolving

 

​Meat has good tenderness, elasticity, chewiness, and juiciness, which all benefit from the fibrous structure of meat. Changing the spatial structure of protein through processing to form the fiber structure and texture similar to animal meat is an important goal in the process of plant-based food organization.

 

​For plant-based food production, organized plant proteins can be extruded by a single screw extruder at low moisture (<35%), or by a twin screw extruder at high moisture (>50%). Low-moisture extrusion products are usually puffy, with a spongy-like structure and fast water absorption, and are usually filled into processed meat products to improve water retention and prevent product shrinkage. In the process of high water extrusion, energy dissipation will be reduced, product swelling will be prevented, protein gelation, reorganization and fat emulsification will be promoted, which can give plant-based food a highly fibrotic texture. Therefore, high water extrusion is more suitable for the production of plant-based food.

 

 

If you want to learn more about the food industry, please visit the SIAL in South China(Shenzhen) website to learn more.

 

Source: Jianshi Hui Industrial Ecology

If there is any infringement, please contact to delete.

SIAL Shenzhen 2024

Exclusive Gateway to Southern China Food and Beverage Booming Market

100000+ F&B Products

Sep 2-4, 2024

Invite successfully your Partner to Register

Win a Limited Edition Gift