Gelation of a combination of insect and pork proteins as affected by heating temperature and insect:meat ratio.

In order to better understand structure formation in hybrid meat products containing insects, viscoelastic properties, protein aggregation and surface hydrophobicity of extracted insect and meat proteins in different insect:meat nitrogen ratios (100:0, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75 and 0:100) at different heating temperatures (from 20 to 80 °C) were studied. During heating, meat proteins showed best gelling properties. This was probably associated with the formation of hydrophobic interactions, as was confirmed by the strong increase in surface hydrophobicity of the meat proteins upon heating.

The effect of temperature on structure formation in three insect batters.

Since insects are a promising alternative protein source, the application potential of three insect larvae (Alphitobius diaperinus, Tenebrio molitor and Zophobas morio) for food purposes was explored. To this end, the effect of isothermal heating at 5 different temperatures (70 °C-90 °C) on structure formation in insect batters was studied rheologically. Meat batters (with the same protein content as insect batters), isothermally heated at 70 °C, were also studied for comparison.