Flavour Composition for Meat-Free Taste Imitation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current meat-free and meat-reduced food products often fail to accurately replicate the complex taste of meat, leading to undesirable taste impressions such as a pea off-note, bitterness, earthiness, beaniess, and chalkiness, which detract from the culinary experience.
Innovation Solution
A flavor composition comprising specific ratios of Tyrosine, Phenylalanine, Tryptophan, and Glutamic acid, combined with aldehydes, fatty acids, phenols, and pyrazines, is used to enhance meat-like taste impressions and reduce unpleasant notes, achieved through enzymatic degradation of proteins and a Maillard reaction process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If protein-based products are used to provide meat-like taste, then meat-free nutrition alternatives are available, but undesired taste impressions such as pea off-note, bitterness, earthiness, beaniess, and chalkiness occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by precisely controlling the ratios of specific amino acids (Tyrosine, Phenylalanine, Tryptophan, and Glutamic acid) in the flavor composition. By optimizing these compositional parameters, the invention enhances desired meat-like taste attributes while suppressing undesired off-notes, thereby resolving the contradiction between providing meat-free alternatives and eliminating unpleasant taste impressions.
2Manufacturing precision
If flavor compositions are developed to imitate complex meat taste, then meat-like taste is provided, but the difference between meat-containing and meat-free products remains perceptible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs composite materials by combining multiple specific amino acids in defined ratios within the flavor composition. This composite approach creates a synergistic effect that more accurately replicates the complex taste profile of meat, reducing the perceptible difference between meat-containing and meat-free products while maintaining high manufacturing precision in taste imitation.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The flavor composition significantly reduces undesirable taste impressions while increasing pleasant flavors like juicy, fatty, meaty, and roasted notes, improving the gustatory quality of meat-free or meat-reduced food products.
Implementation Method 1
enzymatic degradation of proteins to obtain a mixture comprising amino acids
Implementation Method 2
enzymatic degradation of proteins to obtain a mixture comprising amino acids
Implementation Method 3
heating the mixture obtained or provided in step a) or, respectively, b) to apply a Maillard reaction
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention relates to new flavour compositions, a method for producing such flavour compositions, the use of such flavour compositions for enhancing and/or imparting desired taste impressions and/or for reducing and/or masking undesired taste impressions, as well as to a product or semi-finished product comprising such a flavour composition. Furthermore, the present invention relates to the use of a sugar composition in the preparation of such a flavour composition.