Food scientists at the University of Massachusetts have received a grant from the Good Food Institute to develop plant-based food that is similar in texture to chicken, pork and beef. Professor of Food Science, David Julian McClements, leads the team that specializes in taste physiology and sensory science, gut health, food processing and plant-based meat product development. The UMass Amherst team will receive $200,000 over two years.
"Our 2020 grantees are leading biochemists, tissue engineers, computational modeling experts, plant geneticists and food scientists," says Austin Clowes, the scientific research funding coordinator for the Good Food Institute. "This grant will allow us to explore the use of applied nanotechnology and structural design to create molecular architectures from plant proteins that resemble those in meat," he continued. "In particular, we aim to simulate the properties of whole chicken, pork or beef - rather than burgers, sausages or nuggets that exist already."
The Good Food Institute promotes plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy, and eggs, as well as cultivated "clean meat" grown from animal cells in a facility. The team’s future goals are to develop fiber-like structures from plant proteins that improve the texture of plant-based meat.