Development of a Flexitarian food product : The Flexi hot dog

Sammanfattning: Many studies show that plant-based diets are good for both human health and the environment and recommend lowering meat intake considering mounting environmental and animal welfare issues. This facet prompted protein transitions around the world, which in turn aided in the emergence of various diets. Flexitarian is one such diet that encourages people to consume more plant-based meals while also allowing them to eat meat on occasion, unlike other strict vegetarian diets. This project aims to develop a flexitarian food product that will complement flexitarian diet followers as well as consumers looking to minimize their meat intake while offering a tasty flexitarian food product with high nutritional value and minimal environmental impact, by using plant-based ingredients and by-products from the meat industry Mung beans were used as a plant-based ingredient, whereas cattle blood and pork intestine sausage casing were used as animal-derived components in the Flexi hot dog. Two test products were created, and panel members were invited to taste the sausages and perform sensory evaluations using a 9-point hedonic scale. Recipe 2 containing relatively more blood received a higher rating from panel members and thus became the winning version of the sausage, and however, both sausages overall impression received at the upper half of the scale, thus both products delighted the panel members in terms of sensory elements. In order to validate possible consumer demand, participants were requested to reply to open-ended survey questions to examine the possible target consumers for flexitarian diet and flexi hot dog. Many participants indicated that they would like to follow flexitarian diet and buy flexitarian sausage at least once a month. When examining the nutritional value of the Flexi sausage (based on the Livsmedelsverket food nutritional database for ingredients) compared to vegan sausages, the Flexi hot dog had higher energy, carbohydrate, fibre and iron content, and lower fat content. The Flexi hot dog has a relatively low environmental effect of roughly 1.3 kg CO2eq/kg, which is similar to vegan sausages, but lower than regular meat sausages. According to the findings of this study, the flexitarian hot dog pleased consumers’ taste palates, while also offering them nutritious flexitarian food with a low environmental impact; moreover, consumers are predicted to purchase this product at least once a month. Future developments of flexitarian food products are recommended to not deviate from the notion of flexitarian and emphasize the use of legumes and animal by-products, for a resource efficient food system.