Healthy beef burgers: Effect of animal fat replacement by algal and wheat germ oil emulsions

Recent Discoveries in the Field of Lipid Bio-Based Ingredients for Meat Processing

“…Burgers have been one of the most studied meat products using this strategy. In this sense, recent research on the reformulation of beef burgers (100% fat replacement) using wheat oil, algal oil, or their combination in emulsion hydrogels (alginate-based hydrogels) found a significant increase of moisture, protein, ash, and an effective reduction of total fat [ 19 ]. Regarding other nutritional properties, the reformulation increased PUFA and α-tocopherol content, while decreasing SFA and MUFA.…”

“…In order to reformulate meat products, several lipid bio-based ingredients from vegetable and marine source have been proposed in the last several years [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. These lipids include healthy fatty acids (MUFA and PUFA) and also lipids that may have high amounts of natural antioxidants [ 19 ], which may have an important technological function by delaying the oxidation of the unsaturated fatty acids [ 20 ]. However, the highly unsaturated oils do not form solid structures at room temperature, which is one of the main desirable characteristics of animal fat.…”

“…Although encapsulation presented some advantages, it important to highlight that similarly to direct addition of oil, the use of encapsulated oil in meat products is also limited to applications in emulsified meat products, such as frankfurters [ 24 ] or pâté [ 21 ]. However, in other meat products in which consumers desire the consistency and appearance of visible animal fat, the use of encapsulated oil is very limited because it is not capable of mimicking the appearance of fat, since it has a dry powder appearance [ 19 ]. Moreover, the encapsulation of oils requires specific and expensive equipment and is a complex, slow, and expensive technique that affects economic margins from a processor standpoint or the final price of meat products from a consumer standpoint [ 19 ].…”

“…However, in other meat products in which consumers desire the consistency and appearance of visible animal fat, the use of encapsulated oil is very limited because it is not capable of mimicking the appearance of fat, since it has a dry powder appearance [ 19 ]. Moreover, the encapsulation of oils requires specific and expensive equipment and is a complex, slow, and expensive technique that affects economic margins from a processor standpoint or the final price of meat products from a consumer standpoint [ 19 ]. Additionally, the application of spray-drying encapsulated oil made with arabic gum, maltodextrin, and modified starch is not recommended in cooked meat products, since it disintegrates at temperatures above 50 °C.…”

“…Although encapsulation techniques have been studied, other novel applications for the stabilization and structuring of lipid bio-based materials into gels have been proposed to replace animal fat and improve the nutritional quality of the reformulated meat products [ 19 , 25 ]. These strategies aim to mimic the appearance, and plastic and rheological characteristics of animal fat and at the same time improve nutritional quality and lipid profile [ 4 ].…”