Sunny Side Up as Sunflower Flour Emerges as Brazil’s Bold New Plant-Meat

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Well, here’s one for the vegan playbook and possibly your next BBQ. Brazilian and German researchers have just turned the humble sunflower into the latest high-protein meat alternative, and frankly, it sounds like a hit.

Developed by São Paulo’s food-tech boffins at UNICAMP and ITAL, with help from Germany’s Fraunhofer IVV Institute, the new ‘vegan meat’ is based on sunflower flour, the stuff left behind after extracting oil from sunflower seeds. Think of it as culinary upcycling with some pretty smart tweaks.

Source: PFN Ai Archives - APT - A Protein Thing - derived from sunflower flour.

But wait, sunflower flour? Isn’t that gritty bird food? Not anymore. After stripping out the bitter husks and tricky phenolic compounds (which also give the flour its unappetising dark hue), what’s left is a surprisingly neutral, light-tasting protein base. And that, says lead researcher Maria Teresa Bertoldo Pacheco, is exactly what makes it so promising. “It has a very neutral taste and aroma, especially compared to the various vegetable proteins on the market,” she said.

Source: UNICAMP and ITAL -Lab creation of sunflower steak mix

To take it from lab bench to bite-sized bliss, the team whipped up two sunflower-based meat alternatives. One used roasted grain flour; the other, a textured sunflower protein (think: sunflower on steroids). Both were jazzed up with tomato powder, spices, and a Mediterranean oil blend of sunflower, olive, and linseed. The textured version won out in the end, delivering not just better bite but impressive levels of protein and good fats, plus serious mineral creds: 49% of your daily iron needs, 68% zinc, 95% magnesium, and 89% manganese.

And all this without a whiff of soy, pea, or GMOs.

From a processing point of view, extrusion is still key to getting that meat-like texture. But the team believes the results so far show real commercial potential and not just in Brazil. Europe’s already a massive sunflower oil user, and with sunflower cultivation growing fast in South America, the supply side is looking solid too.

“The study gave us a lot of positive references for fully using the cultivar and encouraging its appreciation as a food ingredient,” Maria Teresa Bertoldo Pacheco says. “The German partnership helped massively too - technically, academically, and through exchange of knowledge and people.”

So, could we be seeing sunflower-based burgers lighting up menus next to mushroom patties and pea-based sausages? If consumer hunger for clean-label, upcycled, and allergen-friendly meat alternatives keeps rising, you can bet your sunflower seeds on it.

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