There’s no question that our love affair with cheese continues. From pizza and pasta to decadent slices of cheesecake, you’ll never get bored. However, the dairy industry that produces cheese is having a negative impact on the climate, which is by no means appetizing.
Plant-based alternatives to cheese are environmentally friendly, but many are still not cheesy enough, not to mention ideal for people with lactose intolerance (raise hand) and vegans. . Now, a team of scientists from Denmark’s University of Copenhagen has developed a dairy-free cheese with a taste and texture much closer to the real thing. Instead of developing some kind of futuristic technology, they harnessed the transformative power of a process that has been used to make traditional cheese for thousands of years: fermentation.
just add bacteria
Why are plant-based cheeses notoriously difficult to make? Not all proteins are created equal. Plant proteins behave very differently than dairy proteins, so manufacturers use coconut oil, starch, or gum as hardening agents to add color and flavor that give the final product a cheesy feel.
“Appearance” is the operative word here. The chemistry that makes cheese delicious goes back to the molecular level. Cheese begins as a colloid, a liquid medium with tiny particles evenly distributed within it. When this liquid becomes thick enough to behave like a solid, it forms a gel-like structure.
The most difficult thing to reproduce in plant-based cheeses is the distribution of fat globules. casein, the main proteins found in milk unfold and degrade when exposed to heat treatment. Bacteria is then added to start fermentation, converting the lactose into lactic acid. This lowers the pH and makes the flavor profile more acidic. This acidity binds the proteins together, forming a mass of curd that begins to have a hard texture and eventually becomes cheese.
Can these bacteria do the same thing to plant proteins even in the absence of casein? If so, does it provide the texture and taste that many of us crave?
A matter of taste
The Copenhagen research team, led by researcher Carmen Masia, found that when the same bacteria used to make cheese were introduced into yellow pea proteins, they disrupted the structure of the plant proteins, just as they do with milk proteins. discovered that it produces lactic acid and lowers pH. . The same type of curd was also formed, which holds water and oil without requiring anything to harden or further improve the texture.
Macia and her team experimented with 24 different bacterial blends to see which combinations produced cheese with the most realistic taste and texture. Most consumers are wary of plant-based cheeses because of their “beany” or earthy aftertaste.
The characteristics the researchers specifically looked for were acidity, gel consistency, and how well the bacteria could cover up the pea protein’s vegetable flavor with a buttery, creamy aroma reminiscent of dairy cheese. Fermentation was found to reduce undesirable flavors in all samples, but combinations of bacteria tended to perform better than individual species.
There were two compounds produced by bacteria thermophilus bacteria Diacetyl and acetoin particularly affect taste. These were found in some dairy products, including cheese, and gave the finished product the fatty, sweet, waxy flavor of real cheese. Dimethyl disulfide, another compound particularly abundant in cheddar cheese, was present in all fermented cheese samples. The texture has achieved the highest hardness due to the combination of bacteria. L. helveticus, Pediococcus and L. plantarum. Other compounds are also important in creating the cheesy flavor and texture, but how they achieve it is still poorly understood.
“Future studies will continue on different ripening conditions to further investigate the effects of different bacterial blends on texture and flavor development over time,” the researchers said.
This cheese won’t be hitting supermarket shelves anytime soon. Just like real cheese, science takes time to mature. Perhaps someday, plant-based cheese will become indistinguishable from dairy products, and you won’t even notice the change.
Food of the future, 2023. DOI: 10.1016/j.fufo.2023.100250
