Meat flavors hydrolyzed vegetable protein

Peptides have long been recognized as important flavor compounds in processed foods. The taste of peptides per se is veil known in cheeses (1), meat (2), hydrolyzed vegetable protein including soy products T3), cocoa (A, 5) and to a lesser extent in roasted malt (6), corn steep liquor (7) and aged sake (8). Structurally, food peptides can occur as linear protein fragments (1-3, 5), cyclic dimers (diketopiperazines, DKPs)(A, 6-81 and cyclic trimers (7). 

Meat extracts satisfied the immediate needs but they became in short supply. A Swiss chemist by the name of Julius Maggi developed a meat type flavoring product based on acid hydrolysis of plant protein. When such materials are neutralized and reduced to paste or powder by heat they acquire a flavor profile useful as a meat extract substitute. Today the market for that product, called Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein or HVP, is more than 300 million world wide (1). HVP represents the first modern commercial example of the use of heat to develop a useful material for its use as a flavoring. 

The occurrence of 1 and 3 in a flavor model system has been pointed out by G.J. Hartmann et al. (j 2.. LL). Moreover, 2-methyl-3-furanthiol 1 and bis-(2-methy1-3-fury 1)-disulfide 3. have already been identified as major constituents in a model meat system that was prepared by refluxing an aqueous solution of cysteine hydrochloride, thiamin hydrochloride, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein (12,13) for four hours. 

In addition, peptides play significant roles in the flavor formation of meat, cocoa, and hydrolyzed vegetable proteins. The size of the peptide and the position of the peptide bonds play key roles in the mechanism of flavor formation. Thus, specific peptides may be responsible for the generation of characteristic aroma volatiles the molecular structure of the peptide may also help to control how much of each compound is formed [49]. 

Wu, Y.-F.G., K.R. CadwaUader, Characterization of the aroma of a meat-like process flavoring from soybean-based enzyme-hydrolyzed vegetable protein, J. Agric. Food Chem., 50, 10, p. 2900, 2002. 

---