Cultured meat is a type of sustainable meat that reduces the need for animal slaughter and helps minimize environmental pollution. Researchers have been creating structures to resemble meat, such as using 3D printing to make steak-type cultured meat and developing cellularized microtissue for meatball-type cultured meat. While most studies focus on mimicking meat properties based on cell mass and differentiation, it’s important to note that texture and flavor in meat are also linked to blood and various biological tissues like muscle, fat, and connective tissues. Since research on cultured meat is still at the cell culture stage and still needs to be at the tissue culture level, there are limitations in mimicking the natural properties of meat.
The flavor of meat is determined by the Maillard reaction, which produces compounds such as aldehydes, alcohols, and sulfur-containing compounds during high-temperature cooking. Cultured meat faces challenges in mimicking the flavor of traditional meat due to differences in amino acid profiles. Researchers are working on improving the flavor of cultured meat, but replicating the taste of conventional meat remains a challenge.
“Recently, our group revealed that the enhanced proliferation and differentiation of murine and bovine myoblasts could induce relatively more meat-like flavors in cultured meat. Nevertheless, for cultured meat to present the flavor characteristics of well-cooked meat products, a strategy to generate the Maillard reaction compounds during cooking is still needed,” said Woojin Choi, a co-author of the research publication.
“In our research, we have created cultured meat that produces the taste of grilled beef when cooked. We have developed a switchable flavor compound (SFC) that can release the flavor group responsible for the Maillard reaction when heated to the cooking temperature of 150 °C.”
The SFC has two main parts: the flavor group and two binding groups. The flavor group is a compound with a meaty flavor called furfuryl mercaptan. This compound is a product of the Maillard reaction, which happens when beef is cooked. Because of its thiol-end group, Furfuryl mercaptan can form a special bond called a thermo-responsive disulfide bond. The binding group of SFC can react with methacryloyl, which is part of the gelatin backbone. When mixed with gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA), SFC forms a three-dimensional structure that retains beef flavor and reacts to temperature changes. Simply put, this structure is made of GelMA with added SFC.
“We made a new system called SFC to add meaty flavors to cultured meat. We also found ways to make the flavors more like traditional meat. However, there are still big differences between the flavors of cultured meat with SFC and real meat. In the future, we want to add more flavors to SFC or increase the cells in the meat to make it taste even better. We think this will help us make cultured meat taste just like real meat,” Woojin Choi added.
Cultured meat with a switchable flavor compound (CM + SFC) is created by developing bovine muscle cells in a unique structure. The flavor compound is securely attached to the structure and can release its flavor when heated. This process mimics the flavor development in traditional meat. Cooking the cultured meat at 150 °C produces a range of flavor compounds. Some are categorized as unpleasant, such as fishy and intense flavors, while others are considered pleasant, such as meaty, sulfurous, almond-like, floral, fatty, and fruity flavors. The particular structure aims to enrich the flavor of cultured meat by increasing the pleasant flavor compounds.
He elaborates, “We are confident that our current strategy can help advance the production of lab-grown meat by addressing the gap between the sensory characteristics of lab-grown meat and traditional meat.”
“Despite these remarkable advances, it is important to note that there are certain critical limitations,” he emphasized.
The reagents used may be biocompatible, but caution should be exercised as they may not be food-grade. For example, methacrylic anhydride is commonly used to modify methacrylate in FDA-approved proteins like gelatin and silk fibroin and to create biocompatible scaffolds through photo-crosslinking. However, GelMA sub-types have not been approved by the FDA for food use. Despite the biocompatibility of CM + SFC being confirmed in bovine myoblast experiments, it does not establish its food safety. The suggested flavoring method has the potential to be executed using only food-grade chemicals. Specifically, using FDA-approved transglutaminase for enzymatic gelatin crosslinking could be a promising way to bind Maillard reaction products with only food-grade chemicals. Additionally, the natural disulfide chemistry of cysteine amino acids could provide thermo-responsiveness. In summary, despite limitations related to food-grade chemistry, we believe that the unique flavoring method developed in this study will help produce cultured meat that tastes and smells like traditional meat.
The research is available in Nature Communications.
