Development of plant-based meat from jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus, Lam) / Nurul Shafika Akila Ismail

Unripe jackfruit has great potential as a meat analogue due to its great nutritional profile and naturally meat-like texture. This research paper aims to highlight the potential of unripe jackfruit in the development of plant-based meat and determine the best formulation of the jackfruit meat analogue. Three different formulations of meat analogues had been developed with different percentages of unripe jackfruit and vital wheat gluten (F1= 55% jackfruit + 25% vital wheat gluten; F2 = 45% jackfruit + 35% vital wheat gluten; F3 = 35% jackfruit + 45% vital wheat gluten). Nutritional composition, physicochemical characteristics and sensory evaluation were investigated for all three formulations. Results demonstrated that the texture of the jackfruit meat analogue was improved with increasing vital wheat gluten percentage, where the meat analogue of F3 was observed to have significantly (p<0.05) higher value texture attributes as compared to others. Sample of F1 and F3 showed a significant difference (p<0.05) in cooking loss with 11.88% and 9.13% respectively. While in terms of diameter and thickness shrinkage, there was a significant difference (p<0.05) found between all three formulations in which F3 has the lowest shrinkage after cooking. No significant difference (p>0.05) was found in the colour index of L*, a* and b* between all three samples before and after cooking. But there is a decrease in brightness and yellowness of the sample after cooking. F3 was observed to have a significantly higher (p<0.05) percentage of protein as compared to the F1 due to the high content of vital wheat gluten which has been a good source of protein. Data also showed that F3 was the most preferred meat analogue among the other samples. Thus, the meat analogue of F3 was chosen to have the best formulation of the jackfruit meat analogue.