Ingredients
Pumping Up Plant Proteins: Formulating for
Vegetarians, Vegans and “Flexitarians”
By Mark Crowell, CRC
Today most consumers are looking for quality protein sources, but with movies like “Food, Inc.” highlighting issues surrounding conventional livestock and celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres announcing that
they have converted to veganism, more consumers are seeking out plant-based proteins.
This trend has been building for some
time. In a 2006 survey conducted by Harris Interactive, 2. 3 percent of adults 18 years or
older said they were vegetarian with 1.4 percent identifying themselves as vegan. Even
more significant, a much larger group, perhaps 25 to 30 percent of the population, identified themselves as “flexitarians.” A flexitarian
is a part-time vegetarian who eats three or
more meatless meals per week. Their focus is
more likely on personal health than animal
rights, but many use their meatless meals to
explore new cuisines, ingredients and cooking techniques, giving product developers
broader leeway to be creative.
Research shows that weight management
and cost concerns are two of the top reasons
consumers choose a vegetarian diet, but one-third of consumers make the switch due to
environmental concerns and/or vegetarian
principles. Consumers are becoming more
aware of the environmental costs of meat production—from increases in greenhouse gases
to deforestation. Today, more than 70 percent
of all grains grown in the U.S. go to feed livestock. According to David Pimentel, Professor
of Entomology, Cornell University, if all that
grain was consumed directly it could feed an
additional 800 million people.
The Role of Protein
Protein is the basis of all bodily needs,
from hair development to muscle mass. It’s
critical to life and, within the body, it’s second
only to water in abundance. About half of the
body’s protein is found in skeletal muscle.
The rest is found in organs, blood, enzymes
and hormones.
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ORGANIC PROCESSING
