Posted on 02/02/2025 3:11:42 PM PST by Red Badger
Researcher Alejandro Marangoni demonstrates the stretchy properties of his team’s plant-based cheese analog. Credit: Alejandro Marangoni Researching the interactions between plant-based proteins and fat matrices can enhance the texture and nutritional quality of vegan cheeses.
Plant-based dairy products offer a popular alternative for those who avoid animal products, but manufacturers struggle to replicate the rich, creamy texture that makes traditional dairy so appealing.
To address this challenge, scientists from the University of Guelph in Ontario and Canadian Light Source Inc. in Saskatchewan are developing plant-based cheese that closely mimics the taste and texture of real cheese while providing improved health benefits.
In a study published in Physics of Fluids by AIP Publishing, researchers examined various plant-based proteins and their interactions with alternative cheese structures to better understand how to recreate the desirable qualities of dairy cheese.
“If you wanted to strictly only eat plant-based products, you would end up eating a lot of beans and tofu, which can be little bit boring after a while,” said author Alejandro Marangoni. “Now, consumers expect essentially the same animal product but with plant-based ingredients, which is very difficult.”
Understanding Plant Proteins for Better Texture
To create a cheesy product with the same texture as the real thing, scientists need to study a variety of physical attributes such as the melting, stretching, and oil release upon grilling and heating.
“The behavior of milk proteins and meat proteins is reasonably well understood, but knowledge about the functionality of plant proteins is lacking,” Marangoni said. “There is also a huge variety of different plant proteins, each one very different from one another.”
Previous research concluded that a blend of 25% coconut oil, 75% sunflower oil, and pea protein created a desirable cheese texture. In this research, Marangoni and his team studied isolates from three proteins (lentil protein, faba bean protein, and a particular type of pea protein) and observed how the isolates interacted with the oil and with the starch matrix of the cheese alternative.
They found that increasing the coconut oil increased the hardness of cheeses, but cheese with pea protein and 25% coconut oil had the firmest texture due to their unique protein-fat interactions. This formulation matched or surpassed the melt, oil loss, and stretch of the cheese analogs made with 100% coconut oil.
Using a blend of sunflower and coconut oil decreased the saturated fat content of the cheese, creating a healthy and sustainable alternative to dairy cheeses and other plant-based cheeses.
“Ultimately we want to improve the nutrition, increase the protein content, and lower the saturated fat content of cheese alternatives,” Marangoni said. “But keeping all the functionality in there, which includes the melt and the stretch of the ‘cheese,’ is very difficult.”
Reference:
“Impact of protein sources on the functionality of plant-based cheeses formulated with saturated and unsaturated fat”
by Cameryn Sanders, Jarvis A. Stobbs, Stacie Dobson and Alejandro G. Marangoni, 14 January 2025, Physics of Fluids.
DOI: 10.1063/5.0238556
Nope
not entirely accurate. there are many other excretions from mammals that are considered “cheese”, just not in the traditional sense.
Venezuelan Beaver Cheese?
I always heard the joke as “Vegetarian is old indian word for poor hunter.”
Nope.
I’ll take the natural stuff.
ah.....the one cheese that was fictitious. Perhaps that’s what they could call this glop.
Nacho cheese, man.
NOT ANYBODY’S CHEESE!................
It must be to make fake cheese.
Vegans are weird. All this trouble to make fake versions of the real food they refuse to eat.
There's nothing new under the fun:
Edamame 'plushies':
https://www.curiousnotions.com/rarest-cheese/ Thought you might like this. It’s Monty Python inspired.
But cows already turn plants into cheese precursors.
The ingreients listed on the vegan chees container prolly leads like a chemist’s handbook. No thanks.
Kinda like Mexicans waving the flag of a country they don’t want to go back to...............
That’s soy cute......................
Corn does occasionally make an appearance on cave and cliff rock walls in the New World ...but never in the shape of cheese.
;-b
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