The Development of ground pork patty substitutes from mycelium of Pleurotus pulmonarius

Abstract

As environmental sustainability continues to be emphasized globally, alternative food sources like meat substitutes have surged as an effective environmental remedy. While meat production accounts for more than 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions, the production of meat substitutes can be adopted to enhance efficacious environmental sustainability. Pleurotus pulmonarius, commonly known as oyster mushroom, is well recognized for its nutritional value and protein content.  This study aims to develop meat substitutes derived from P. pulmonarius. Initially, P. pulmonarius was cultivated in brown rice solution by extracting brown rice in boiled distilled water. The mycelium of P. pulmonarius was dried in the oven at 60°C for 5 hours. The development of meat substitutes formulation consists of 34.4% dried P. pulmonariusmycelium, 34 % water, 31.2% wheat flour, 0.32% carrageenan, and 0.08% salt. The physical properties which were compression, pH, and color of meat substitute formulation were tested. The results revealed that on day 0 and day 9, compared to ground pork patties the color, pH and the strength of meat substitute was not significantly different statistically (p>0.05). Biological tests of meat substitutes were conducted to investigate protein content using Lowry’s method, the result showed that meat substitutes contain significantly higher protein content thanground pork patties (p≤0.05) .In addition, meat substitutes were analyzed for Escherichia coli presence in our meat substitutes on day 0 and day 9 using EMB agar, the result showed that there was no presence of E. coli in both days of investigation. Furthermore, according to sensory evaluation among 10 untrained consumers using a 9-point hedonic scale, the evaluation revealed no significant differences between our meat substitutes and ground pork patties (p>0.05).