AMHERST Throughout his life, David Julian McClements has devoured meat, gone veggie, retreated back to animal products and finally, settled on a vegetarian diet.
Now the University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor is working on research to expand the variety of tasty, nutritious plant-based products that provide protein and other ingredients necessary for a healthy diet.
"There are so many advantages to plant-based foods. They are ethical as well as environmental, with better use of our land and water and reduction of greenhouse gases,'' McClements said.
McClements team at UMass will be bolstered by a grant of $200,000 over two years by the Good Food Institute to create tasty, plant-based, protein-rich food thats similar in texture to whole chicken, pork or beef.
His own dietary evolution speaks to changing customs, advanced learning and ultimately, personal choice.
"I grew up in England. My grandmother would make delicious roast beef, roast pork and lamb,'' McClements said.
"Then I took a food science the University of Leeds, and people from the meat industry showed us pictures (of the process) that were just horrific. I became a vegetarian, but there was nothing good to eat.
"About five years ago, my daughter became a vegetarian, so I returned to plant-based diet as well.
The research project is not a coronavirus story, but like all else in American life these days, the pandemic has had its effect.
"I have 20 to 25 students involved, and our lab has been shut down. We did have a lab meeting on Zoom, but no students can go in the lab, which is devastating. All of them are anxious to get back,'' McClements said.
Even though plant-based food research is not a direct result of the coronavirus crisis, healthy practices are dramatically front and center these days. Other types of disease such as swine flu or avian influena (bird flu) have links to animal proximity, McClements said, and plant-based products would reduce those risks.
He said the reasons to promote plant-based foods goes behind communicable diseases. Pork products are rejected not just for reasons of health but, for many people, on religious or ethical grounds. Treatment and slaughter of animals, in both method and number, is a far more sensitive and debated topic than was once true.
Plant-based products with a meaty taste surged into the popular culture with Burger Kings Impossible Whopper, which was advertised as 0 percent meat. There was some controversy (and at least one court case) attached; some strict vegans and vegetarians objected to the chains use of the same grills to produce both meat and meatless burgers, which they said soiled the purity of the meatless brand.
McClements sees truth in the objection, but there was value to the news generated by Burger King and other outlets that introducedso-called meatless meat. Not only were vegetarians interested, but meat eaters were curious to try them, creating a potentially expanded interest in plant-based alternatives.
McClements is convinced the market will only continue to grow.
"Our work is to make plant-based foods healthier, safer and more convenient to consumers,'' he said.
The grant will help this work with chicken, beef and pork products. Other areas of food and nutrition also have the interest of researchers.
Dairy products have already seen alternative advances such as almond, soy or coconut milk. McClements thinks more advancement is attainable. A more long-range interest is what he calls test tube meat, a result of cellular agriculture where meat substitutes are grown in fermentation with the goal of reproducing the necessary dietary ingredients in safe, healthy form.
Creating plant-based alternatives is not that easy.
"Some of the essential amino acids and minerals are hard to get from plants. Were working to make the next generation of foods with all the vitamins and nutrients (from meat), McClements said.
Is there a market? Theres no question about that.
In 2003, a California judge rejected a vegans objection to a turberculosis test by saying the class of strict ethical vegans was too small. He referred to their reactions a "rare, idiosyncratic, hypersensitive, or unusual.
Those days are gone. Recent court rulings show acceptance of vegans. Grand View Research predicts the vegan market will grow at a compounded rate of 9.6 percent over the next six years.
In 2018, a Gallup survey said 3 percent of Americans, or 7.6 percent, were vegan - a dietary regimen with even stricter restrictions than those of vegetarians.
McClements is convinced that once Americans stop assuming plant-based protein products offer nothing good to eat, as he once did, more will join.
"People who dont want to kill animals will be interested in plant-based, cultivated or cultured meat. I think that includes people of all ages,'' he said.
"Vegans are vegetarians are generally just healthier people. Along with the ethical and environmental advantages this brings, this is creating a big push in this direction>
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UMass-Amherst professor researching expanded plant-based food choices - MassLive.com
