Stress-testing sausages may give vegan products a meat-like mouthfeel

Alex Wilkins

The mouth's mechanical properties in the lab help explain why plant-based sausages don't quite feel the same when you eat them as meat-based ones, while also providing tips that could help make their texture more meat-like.

Despite recent improvements, plant-based sausages are still very different from meat versions in the eyes and mouths of many people. It's difficult to make plant-based alternatives more meat-like because of the complexity of the sausage itself.

Thomas Vilgis and his colleagues measured the different physical properties of three sausages from the same manufacturer, one meat, one vegetarian and one plant-based, to better understand how their underlying structure works. They applied a number of different mechanical forces to the sausage samples to make them feel like they are in the mouth.