Heura releases plant-based burger with innovative fat analogue
Fast growing plant-based food brand, Heura is introducing a new burger following its recent launched in the UK and the popularity of its plant based chicken burger at vegan retailers.
According to Heura, the burger is set to be the healthiest on the market thanks to the creation of a new fat analogue that will “revolutionise the physics of oil and fat”.
The analogue allows this plant based burger to achieve the same juiciness as a beef burger but with 64.25%less fat. The burger also contains 85.6% less saturated fat than animal meat, and has 11.3% more protein per calorie.
The burger is the first and only plant based burger made with extra virgin olive oil, which is rich in monounsaturated fats, says Heura.
Studies show that eating foods rich in monounsaturated fatty acids instead of saturated fats improves blood cholesterol levels, which can decrease your risk of heart disease and may also help to decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes. In addition, extra virgin olive oil is more sustainable than coconut or palm oil. The burger also contains sustainable pea protein concentrate and vegetable fibre. The brand prides itself on its clean label, which contains 40% less ingredients than the market average.
Heura’s burger stems from its fat analogue made of extra virgin olive oil. Until now, the only way to obtain the juiciness of a beef burger in plant based options was to use high amounts of fat from oils.
This meant that many plant based burgers focused only on delivering the sensorial experience of meat, while containing almost the same amount of fat as an animal burger. Therefore, the global challenge of the plant based industry was developing a burger that preserved the juiciness of meat while reducing the amount of fat from oils.
The Heura R&D team found the solution to this problem after over 1000 trials, and the new burger achieves the perfect balance of ingredients and ambiental factors to offer the meaty and juicy experience of an animal burger with only 6.5 grams of fat.
Lorena Salcedo, new product development manager at Heura, said: “When we visualise the fat from a burger or the coconut oil in the supermarket, they are solid. This is because they both have high contents of saturated fat. We had to reproduce that with an oil that is liquid (monounsaturated) and minimise its use to reduce the amount of fat on the burger. We have analyzed both structures separately, the beef burger one and extra virgin olive oil to get the experience of one from the nutritional values of the other. When you see the essence of what you really need it’s easy to see the most efficient way to get there.”