Would you eat 3D-printed vegan seafood?

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Vegan seafood that looks, tastes and has a similar texture to the real thing been made using a 3D printer for the first time.

Scientists claim to have created "desirable" plant-based and friable salmon fillets, shrimp and even calamari rings that taste good - while maintaining the healthful profile of real fish.

While plant-based alternatives to beef, pork and poultry are commonplace in shops today, researchers say more mock seafood options are needed because of "unsustainable" fishing practices, which can deplete the supply and harm the environment.

Creating vegan alternatives to seafood that match the nutrition and taste of the real thing has previously proved difficult.

Now a research team in Singapore has 3D-printed an ink made from microalgae protein and mung bean protein, and their proof-of-concept calamari rings can even be air-fried for a quick, tasty snack.

Graduate student Poornima Vijayan, who was part of the National University of Singapore (NUS) research team, said: “I think it's imminent that the seafood supply could be very limited in the future.

“We need to be prepared from an alternative protein point of view, especially here in Singapore, where over 90 percent of the fish is imported.”

People around the world eat a lot of seafood, but the oceans are not an infinite resource.

The researchers say overfishing has depleted many wild fish populations and that lack of sustainability, combined with heavy-metal and microplastic contamination, as well as ethical concerns, have pushed some shoppers toward plant-based alternatives.

But such alternatives are still difficult for vegan seafood lovers to find.

While some mock seafood products — such as imitation crabmeat made from minced and reshaped pollock or other white fish - are already in shops, making mimics from plants has proved to be a challenge.

Study principal investigator NUS Professor Dejian Huang says it’s hard to achieve the nutritional content, unique textures and mild flavors of cooked fish meat using vegetables or fungi.

He said: “Plant-based seafood mimics are out there, but the ingredients don’t usually include protein.

"We wanted to make protein-based products that are nutritionally equivalent to or better than real seafood and address food sustainability."

Huang and his team used legume protein to develop better seafood alternatives.

And they replicated the flakiness and "mouth feel" of real fish by 3D printing a protein-based ink with a food-grade 3D printer.

Depositing the edible ink layer by layer created different textures, some fatty and smooth and others fibrous and chewy, in a single product.

Huang said: “We printed salmon filets with protein from red lentils because of the protein’s color, and we’ve printed shrimp.

“Now, we wanted to print something else interesting with the potential for commercialization - calamari rings.”

The team tested two sustainable, high-protein plant sources: microalgae and mung beans.

Some microalgae already have a “fishy” taste, which Vijayan says made them a good candidate to use in the squid-ring analog.

And she said mung bean protein is an underutilized waste product from manufacturing starch noodles, also called cellophane or glass noodles, which are a popular ingredient in many Asian dishes.

The researchers extracted microalgae and legume proteins in the lab and combined them with plant-based oils containing omega-3 fatty acids.

In the end, the nutritional profile of the high-protein vegan paste was similar to that of calamari rings from squid.

The paste was then subjected to temperature changes, allowing it to be easily squeezed out of a 3D printer’s nozzles and layered into rings.

Finally, the team assessed the finished rings’ taste, smell and appearance.

They claim 3D printing gave the seafood mimic structure and texture, but consumers will still want to bake, fry or sauté it- just like they do with real squid.

In an initial cooking test, Vijayan air-fried some of the samples as they would be prepared for a snack.

The research team tried the plant-based calamari, remarking on their "acceptable" taste and "promising" texture properties.

Before conducting consumer tests, Vijayan wants to optimize the product.

She said: “The goal is to get the same texture and elastic properties as the calamari rings that are commercially available.

“I’m still seeing how the composition impacts the product’s elasticity and the final sensory properties.”

And while this plant-based mimic might provide a seafood fix for people with allergies to mollusks, which includes squid, Huang isn’t sure whether people could be sensitive to its ingredients.

He said: “I don’t think that there are many known cases of allergies to microalgae proteins or mung bean proteins.

"But we don’t know yet because it’s still a new combination."

Now the team plans to develop several prototypes and assess how easily they can be developed for large-scale food manufacturing.

Huang expects that in the next few years the calamari-like products could be available in fine-dining restaurants or specialty outlets.

Vijayan added: “I think people will like our plant-based mimic.

"From a novelty perspective, it has that seafood taste but comes from only sustainable plant-based sources."

The findings are due to be presented at the latest meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in San Francisco.