Plant Proteins for Meat Lovers
More and more meat substitutes are piling up on supermarket shelves. But can they really mimic the original convincingly? Surprisingly, little is known about the processing of vegetable proteins - which researchers now want to change.
Meat plays an important role in our society, be it at the Martin goose, Christmas dinner or a barbecue party. Many researchers assume that eating meat is what made us who we are today in the first place. Among other things, animal proteins provided us with high-calorie meals that required far less effort than eating roots, for example. According to some studies, meat consumption also shaped human social behavior: our linguistic, organizational and social skills developed through hunting because we were forced to cooperate.
However, high meat consumption is a problem these days. The associated agriculture is extremely harmful to the environment, and researchers also suspect that excessive consumption is associated with he alth risks. There are also ethical reasons that have prompted more and more people to give up meat in recent years. In 2019, around six million people in Germany classified themselves as vegetarians. But for the other 74 million, including me, it's hard to imagine barbecues with just veggies.
The food industry has responded to this trend and launched numerous meatless alternatives: from veggie grilled sausages to pea-based steaks and seitan burger patties. However, most products cannot keep up with the original - especially when it comes to the texture, many of the imitations are not really convincing …
