The popularity of plant-based meat substitutes is growing fast across the globe as health and environmentally conscious consumers are on the lookout for alternatives for meat. Even though there are more plant-based options than ever before, the food industry is struggling to deliver meat analogues that match consumer expectations for sustainable, nutritious, and clean label ingredients. BlackGrain offers a simple solution to this challenge.
Plant-based meat analogues replace meat as a healthier alternative which is why they mimic the texture, taste, and look of meat. However, many products on the market are packed with food additives and offer little nutritional value.
In this blog, Juha-Pekka Järvinen, Research and Product Development Manager at Apetit, reveals how adding BlackGrain to your meat analogue recipe results in nutritious products that cater to the needs of your customers who value clean eating.
BlackGrain is a natural, good source of nutrients
BlackGrain from Yellow Fields® is made of rapeseed that naturally contains fibre as well as protein and healthy fatty acids. Therefore, BlackGrain can give the final product better nutritional value, considering the fat profile and fibre content, than meat can.
– With BlackGrain we can increase the fibre content without significantly lowering the protein content. Also, BlackGrain is combined with other plant proteins, such as grains and legumes, to achieve an even better nutritional value for the end product.
Read more about enhancing the fibre content of your product with BlackGrain.
It is common knowledge that it is harmful to consume high amounts of saturated fats. Even so, surprisingly many meat substitutes are made with coconut oil which contains 80% saturated fat.
– Coconut oil has the same disadvantages as animal-based saturated fats. BlackGrain contains almost 21% unsaturated fatty acids – the best kind of plant-based fat, Järvinen clarifies.
Add TVP with BlackGrain for a cleaner label
In addition to good nutritional value, BlackGrain has natural properties that allow leaving certain additives out of your original meat analogue recipe. BlackGrain binds water well which means including it in textured vegetable protein (TVP) as a part of the mix will result in a juicy outcome with less binders. According to Järvinen, burger patties from Apetit’s test kitchen are an excellent example of this effect:
– These burger patties were prepared with TVP that contains 20% BlackGrain. We were able to reduce the amount of food binders and leave coconut oil out of the recipe completely.
Also, since meat substitutes imitate meat, they are coloured to look more like meat. BlackGrain, on the other hand, gives a natural dark colour to the end product.
No compromises on taste or texture
As BlackGrain is an authorised novel food, the maximum amount per product has been determined and finally set in the Commission Implementing Regulation. As far as meat substitutes are concerned, it can be 10% of the final weight of the product.
– BlackGrain itself tastes very mild. Combined with pea protein isolate it masks the taste of peas. It also adds good food texture, especially chewiness when used as a part of TVP. Structure and good mouth feel are retained even after reheating food, Järvinen says.
BlackGrain makes your meat analogue product stand out
The rapeseed used in BlackGrain is harvested in the yellow fields of Northern Europe. Traditionally, rapeseed has been primarily processed for oil, with the remaining nutritional components directed to animal feed before eventually reaching humans. BlackGrain changes this approach by making the valuable nutrients in rapeseed directly available for human nutrition.
This innovative process significantly shortens the food supply chain by eliminating additional processing steps between the field and the plate. By preserving and utilizing more of rapeseed’s nutritional benefits in a single ingredient, BlackGrain represents a more efficient and sustainable way to harness this nutritious crop.
Choose a responsibly manufactured product with high nutritional value such as BlackGrain to upscale your meat analogue product and take a leading position as a forerunner in the food industry.
Follow the consumer-driven clean label food trend and create highly nutritious products with us!