meat that is made in the laboratory is celebrated as an environmentally friendly, animal -free alternative to conventional cuts and steaks - but has difficulty replicating the taste of real meat. Now researchers cultivated meat developed, which releases beef aromas at high temperatures, a development that could improve the taste for consumers.

In a July 9th in Nature Communications 1 the team showed the team, The fact that the improvement of in vitro-animal cells is associated with the Maillard reaction-the process that gives the cooked food its discolored color and its appetizing aromas-helps to replicate the aroma and thus the taste of conventional meat.

"In our knowledge, this is the first approach to regulate the flavors of cultivated meat," says study mitar Milae Lee, a biomolecular engineer at Yonsi University in Seoul.

"There is not enough research like this that focuses on this type of end product analysis," says Seren Kell, Head of Science and Technology at the Good Food Institute Europe in Forest, Belgium. It is "really important to ensure that cultivated meat can meet consumer expectations," she adds.

taste focus

cultivated meat, which is produced by the growing of animal muscle cells in the laboratory, has numerous advantages compared to conventional meat. It is not necessary to slaughter animals to produce the stem cells that the process requires, and the production of the meat on a large scale could ultimately have a lower CO2 balance than to raise farm animals. "A lot of greenhouse gas emissions is required to produce conventional meat," says Lee. "These types of pollution factors can be minimized for cultivated meat."

Although previous research has researched opportunities for the further development of cultivated meat in order to imitate structures of familiar products such as meatballs, these studies often “do not really focus on the 'organoleptic' - meaning, especially taste and taste,” says Lee.

When conventional meat is cooked at high temperatures, it goes through the Maillard reaction-its amino acids and sugar react with each other, which gives the meat to be recognizable aroma and its taste. But since cultivated meat has a different amino acid profile than conventional meat, it does not react to the same extent.

To correct this, Lee and her colleagues developed a connection that could be added to cultivated meat and contained furling captan-a product of the Maillard reaction that contributes to a hearty taste profile-along with substances that would bind it and protect the meat from disintegration. They constructed the connection 'switchable', which means that the taste is released when the meat is heated to 150 ° C.

You were also keen to ensure that the connection with the cellula cultivation process was compatible. They integrated them into a hydrogel: a gel -like material that can be used as a framework for stem cells while growing into muscle tissue and becoming more meat -like.

The researchers used an electronic nose -a device that analyzes the chemical composition of smells -to test how well the hydrogel and cell cultures hold the aroma. At room temperature, the bred meat didn't have much taste. But when it was heated to 150 ° C, it produced connections that were associated with hearty, fruity, fruity and fleshy aromas. This shows that the hydrogel works well with the aroma components to create a controlled release of fleshy flavors.

Further research showed that a combination of three different Maillard reaction products created a taste that came closer to that of conventional beef, with floral and creamy notes alongside hearty flavors. The team plans to test other mixtures in the future, says Lee. The group also hopes to scale the technology-the process of making meat in the laboratory is currently slow and labor-intensive, and Only small quantities are produced .

Kell wants the team to explore the potential of different fleshy flavors by "looking at all dominant aroma compounds in other species and product types beyond beef".