Preparation and Properties of High-Soluble Wheat Gluten Protein Based Meat Analogues.

Abstract

Wheat gluten protein (WGP) has poor solubility and does not easily form fibrous structures, the meat analogues, prepared from it, have unsatisfactory texture properties and poor water holding capacity. Our previous work indicated that pH-shifting combined with heat treatment can significantly improve the solubility and emulsibility of WGP. Therefore, in this work, WGP was treated by pH-cycling (m-WGP) to improve the solubility and then applied in the preparation of meat analogues by high moisture extrusion. The results indicated that the addition of m-WGP significantly improved the texture characteristics and water holding capacity (282.4%) of the extrudates and made the extrudates show a tighter organizational structure according to the SEM images. Additionally, MRI analysis showed that the addition of m-WGP resulted in a more uniform moisture distribution in the extrudate. And the free sulfhydryl group result showed that the addition of m-WGP significantly increased the free sulfhydryl group content, which was beneficial to the formation of disulfide bonds to enhance the tissue structure. When the addition content of m-WGP was 10%, the gluten extrudate exhibited good water holding capacity and uniform moisture distribution, but the excessive hardness and chewiness were not suitable for simulating meat. When the addition content of m-WGP reached 50%, the gluten extrudate has the closest textural characteristics to commercial plant-based meat and real meat, with the potential to be used as a raw material to simulate meat. Accordingly, this work improves the processing properties of WGP and explores plant-based ingredients for meat analogues. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.