Here is the Steak 2.0 of the startup Novameat, led by the Italian researcher Giuseppe Scionti: a sustainable alternative to beef that could arrive on the market by 2021
In recent years we have seen the most disparate attempts at reproduce the meat – and also fish – using only and exclusively components of vegetable origin, in an attempt to offer the market an alternative proposal that is sustainable from an environmental point of view. No, we are not talking about products based on lentils, vegetables and related products, but about real ones technological projects that by combining fats, proteins and various colors extracted from plants & co., they have been able to recreate – for example – hamburgers with a taste and consistency very similar to those of a beef meatball. Yes, but when you go from the reproduction of the mince to that of, for example, a real steak, things get complicated considerably. Why the textures and the appearance of a sirloin or a rib is much, much more complicated to reproduce properly.
A particularly bold attempt comes from today Novameatstartup based in Barcelona, Spain, led by the young Milanese researcher Giuseppe Scionti. Her Steak 2.0, developed and perfected over the last few years of experimentation, it is in fact the first 3D printed steak based on plant components only. With a consistency and appearance – as can be seen from the photographs – very similar to those of a real cut of meat.
How Steak 2.0 was made
Being able to configure the particles and vegetable proteins to obtain the texture of a steak is somewhat complex. Especially because the most used technological procedures nowadays manage to perfectly mimic only certain specific types of meat. The novelty introduced by Novameat, in this sense, is a particular baptized process "Microextrusion", which allows to act on the structure of vegetable proteins. Going from time to time to mimic muscle fibers chicken, beef or, for example, tuna.
«While I was dealing with a medical-veterinary research on how it was possible to regenerate animal tissues through the 3D bioprint, Says the CEO of the startup, Dr. Scionti,« I discovered a way to bio-hack the structure of the extracellular matrix of a series of vegetable proteins. This allows you to reconfigure it from time to time and obtain a consistency of the product very similar to that of the different types of meat . Not only that, because in this way parts with different textures can also be created within the same printed steak, which allow you to reproduce that complexity characteristic of real meat given by the alternation of lean and fatty parts.
When can we taste it
While all over the world meatballs of vegetable origin, they are already peeking among the restaurants and fast food proposals, to taste Novameat's Steak 2.0 we will have to wait a few more months. The researchers are indeed working for perfect further the product before launching on the market, especially from the point of view of taste.
The company's goal – which reaffirms the need to find increasingly sustainable food solutions, also in the face of the increase in the world population and the problems related to climate change – would still be to be able to present its steak to the world by 2021. With a price initially similar to that of real beef, but destined to drop with the improvement of technologies and a possible expansion of production. «We are the first generation with the knowledge and technologies necessary for reverse the climate crisis, Giuseppe Scionti underlines,« and we can choose to be remembered as those who have known how to safeguard life on our planet. We have a great opportunity, and we must seize it .
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