On the importance of cooling in structuring processes for meat analogues

High moisture extrusion (HME) is a common method to produce meat analogues. This process requires cooling of the product in the die and is associated with a high mechanical energy input. Here, we use high-temperature shear cell (HTSC) technology to better understand the importance of cooling while shearing for the formation of fibrous products upon thermomechanical processing. The maximal rotational speed for fibrous structure formation from a pea protein isolate-wheat gluten (PPI-WG) blend was found to be the same (<30 rpm) when shearing during heating or cooling. However, shearing during cooling was not beneficial for making visually fibrous products in the HTSC and it weakened the products, while simultaneously inducing mechanical anisotropy. Additionally, we found that the mechanical energy necessary to produce these fibrous structures is only a fraction of the mechanical energy input currently used for HME. We therefore conclude that the HME process for production of meat analogues could still be improved.