How Fake Meat Is Made  Like real meat, the fake stuff is
available either finished or raw. Finished products include
everything from frozen burger patties striped with faux grill
marks to fake bologna slices and breaded not-chicken nuggets
made from wheat, soy or Quorn, a patented fungus derivative
otherwise known as mycoprotein.  Soy protein usually arrives at
a food manufacturer in the form of a dry powder. Soy protein is
coiled and globular, while real meat proteins are fibrous, so
the challenge is to change the soy’s molecular structure. The
food manufacturer exposes the soy protein to heat or acid or a
solvent, and then runs it through an extruder to reshape it.
“When you denature the molecules, they open up and become more
fibrous,” says Barry Swanson, a professor of food science and
nutrition at Washington State University and a fellow at the
Institute of Food Technologists. “Then you hold them together
with a gel, such as carrageenan or xanthan gum, something that
will hold a little bit of water, and