Imagine a menu of entrees made up of a mix of different proteins from plants, fungi, insects, microbial fermentation and cultivated animal meat. Sound impossible to swallow? Not to renowned University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientist David Julian McClements.

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“It’s possible to create tasty, nutritious and sustainable alternatives to animal products,” says McClements, Distinguished Professor of Food Science and senior author of a new paper published Sept. 30 in Frontiers in Science. 

The paper was written with David Kaplan, a Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Biology at Tufts University, as part of a special issue hub on hybrid alternative protein-based foods.

Nutritious meat alternatives that are tasty and affordable are urgently needed, the researchers say, to reduce our reliance on industrial animal use. That would help shrink our carbon footprint and improve our health, as well as reduce the risks of zoonotic diseases and antimicrobial resistance. 

“Hybrid foods could give us delicious taste and texture without breaking the bank or the planet,” Kaplan says. 

The key is combining the best aspects of each protein source, the researchers explain: for example, the fibrous texture of mycelium, which is the vegetative part of fungi already used in many plant-based meat products; the sensory and nutritional qualities of cultivated meat produced from animal cells; the nutrition and sustainability of insects, eaten regularly by some two billion people worldwide; the proteins, pigments, enzymes and flavors from microbial precision fermentation; and the abundance and low cost of plants. 

“No single alternative protein source is perfect,” says McClements, part of a team of UMass Amherst researchers using their different areas of expertise to help develop better meat alternatives. “But hybrid products give us the opportunity to overcome those hurdles, creating products that are more than the sum of their parts.”

The researchers investigated different protein sources: plants, such as soy products like tofu; insects; mycelium-based products, including vegan commercial meat alternatives; cultivated meat grown in bioreactors; and microbial fermentation products. They noted in the paper that, to overcome the “disgust” many people may feel at the idea of eating whole insects, “the food industry is developing products that contain insect ingredients but that do not look like the insects themselves. For instance, the insects may be converted into flours or pastes that are then incorporated into foods like protein bars, baked snacks, burgers, nuggets or sausages.”

McClements and Kaplan assessed the strengths and weaknesses of each protein source and considered how to harness the best qualities of each—both with and without animal meat. While plant proteins are cheap and scalable, they often lack the flavor and texture of meat. Meanwhile, cultivated meat grown in a bioreactor more closely mimics the taste and nutrition of animal meat but is expensive and hard to scale. Mycelium can add natural texture, while insects offer high nutrition with a low environmental footprint.

The researchers reviewed various combinations to compare their sensory and nutritional profiles, consumer acceptance, affordability and scalability.

In the short term, plant-mycelium hybrids appear most economically viable because they are scalable, nutritious and already used in commercial products. In the longer term, plant-cultivated meat hybrids may become more desirable, as even small amounts of cultivated cells can improve taste, texture and nutrition once production costs fall and capacity expands.

Early studies, they add, found that substantial fractions of meat in burgers or sausages can be replaced with plant proteins without reducing consumer acceptance, and even small additions of cultivated meat or mycelium can improve the taste, texture and nutrition of plant-based products.

“There is an urgent need to transform the modern food system to improve the health of us and our planet,” McClements says. “Hybrid foods offer the potential to achieve this critical goal.”