Cut up to 50% fat in meat formulations

At the IFFA trade fair for the meat industry, Dow Pharma & Food Solutions, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) shows how manufacturers can make pork sausages with less fat by using METHOCEL™ Bind.

METHOCEL™ Bind, the latest addition to Dow’s METHOCEL™ family of highly versatile plant-based food ingredients (cellulose derivatives), is designed to help food manufacturers create convenient, healthier, and cost-effective foods by improving stability, bite, and texture at high and low temperatures from production to consumption.

The product itself is a white powder that is tasteless and odorless, and combined with flavors and salts, e.g. as a dry blend. It creates stable emulsions that offer similar benefits to Dow’s METHOCEL™MX but with improved structure and texture at lower consumption temperature thanks to its lower melt back property and long lasting gelling behavior. This feature makes METHOCEL™ Bind suitable for cold cuts and foods that require both a hot and cold bite. During thermal gelling some moisture is released, which enhances flavors and leads to a juicy bite at high temperatures.  

Replace or reduce meat or egg

Emulsions with METHOCEL™ Bind allow food manufacturers to reduce the fat content of meat by up to 50 percent or replace the animal fats with healthier alternatives such as vegetable and omega oils. Due to its structural functionality, the product can also be used to replace or reduce meat and eggs for healthier food options that satisfy the dietary, religious, health or ethical concerns of consumers without compromising on taste, look and texture. 

“We developed METHOCEL™ Bind to help global and regional food manufacturers extend their product offering in the fast growing market segments of meat, meat analogues and vegetarian foods. Our ingredients can be easily integrated into a wide range of formulations to address consumer demands, improve the sensory attributes, and meet the requirements of cost-sensitive markets” comments Dr Anne Adden, Global Market Manager, Meat and Vegetarian Products.

WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction

WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction is a range of innovative cellulose-based food gums that help reduce the oil uptake of coated and battered food products including meat and meat analogues during frying.  This allows food manufacturers to achieve a fat and calorie reduction of up to 35 percent in fried foods, enabling ‘reduced fat claims’ without compromising on product quality and taste.

According to the company, oil uptake can also go as high as 50 percent during normal deep frying.

Dow’s Innovation team has focused to develop a technology that would impact least the flavor and crispiness of the fried foods, the company also said. Their sensory data shows how taste panels reviewed and found very little difference with full fat products.

The new ingredient is based on Dow’s DPM technology which allows maximum dissolution of the Wellence FR in coating systems containing many other ingredients. Maximum dissolution means maximum performance on oil uptake reduction. With the DPM technology we ensure the product has the right particle size and shape for the best dissolution profile.