Molecule for Beefy Taste Discovered

Where’s the beef?

According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, it’s locked in a small molecule that gives meat its natural beefy flavor.

The molecule, recently discovered in fresh beef, could improve the flavor of frozen foods, soups, airline meals and a broad variety of other inexpensive foods, USDA animal physiologist Arthur Spanier said here Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. “It could make a chuck steak taste like a T-bone,” he said.

It could even be used with soy protein or tofu to produce meatless hamburgers that taste like the real thing, he said. Eventually, he said, the dinner table might have a shaker of the substance that you would sprinkle on food to enhance taste, just as people do with monosodium glutamate.

“It has a very, very delicious taste and, like MSG, makes a lot of other things taste better,” Spanier said. But it does not seem to have any of the adverse effects associated with MSG, he added, such as severe allergic reactions.

This beefy-meaty-peptide, called BMP, is still in the very early stages of development, but Spanier sees few problems in bringing it to market because it already occurs naturally in food.

BMP consists of eight amino acids linked together in a chain. It is produced from a larger parent protein during the aging of beef after slaughter, which may explain why aged beef tastes better than fresh. It is also produced when meat proteins are broken down by tenderizers, again offering an explanation for why tenderization and marination improve the taste of inexpensive cuts of meat.

It is not the only flavoring agent composed of amino acids. MSG is a derivative of an amino acid, and the artificial sweetener aspartame is made up of two amino acids. Many flavoring agents used in beef bouillon are made by combining mixtures of amino acids and sugars.

But BMP is the first significant flavor peptide that occurs naturally, he said.

All eight amino acids are necessary for the compound’s “savory” taste, Spanier said. Any smaller segment of the molecule has a bitter or sour taste, he said.

Spanier has not pinned down the parent molecule, although he has found that it does not come from myosin or actin, the most important and common proteins in muscle.

The major potential roadblock to wide use of the compound, he predicted, will be obtaining approval from the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. That will require extensive safety studies.

But he thinks BMP will be found safe. “Unlike MSG, it’s probably hypoallergenic, or people would be allergic to beef,” he said. And the fact it appears in all the beef we eat suggests there are no significant adverse side effects, he added.

Several food companies have expressed interest in the compound, especially makers of soup and bouillon, he said, but none have started studies on it.

Meanwhile, Spanier is beginning a search for similar compounds in other types of meat. He believes it likely that there is a mutton-meaty-peptide, a fish-meaty-peptide and a chicken-meaty-peptide. The last, he speculated, could explain why so many unusual meats are said to “taste like chicken.”