Plant-based foods like tempeh and bean burgers are good choices if you want to eat less meat.
But making these foods taste like meat can be tricky, and companies often use artificial components.
A new discovery suggests a natural idea: onions, chives, and leeks that produce great meat-like flavors when fermented with common fungi.
More about the study
To make plant-based meat alternatives for vegans taste meatier, food makers often add food that mimic the flavors found in real meat.
But these are usually made through synthetic processes, so they can't be called "natural."
Creating a truly natural meat flavoring would involve getting the flavor chemicals directly from plants or using enzymes, bacteria, or fungi to make them.
How it was conducted
In this experiment, scientists tested different fungi with various foods.
They found out that the best meaty aromas came from unexpected foods like onions and leeks.
The strongest smell came from onions fermented with a fungus called Polyporus umbellatus, and it smelled like liver sausage.
Using special equipment, the specialists identified the components that are responsible for these meaty scents.
One of them was bis(2-methyl-3-furyl) disulfide, a strong-smelling compound found in meaty and savory foods.
Onions and similar plants have a lot of sulfur, which helps create these meat-like flavors.
Why it's useful
Later, these onion ferments could be easily used as natural flavorings in plant-based vegan meat alternatives.
This means you could enjoy the taste of meat without actually using meat.
