It looks like chicken.

It tastes like chicken.

But it is not chicken.

It's not even meat, but a "meat analog."

It's a new soybean product fabricated out of a soybean protein and flour and a bit of wheat starch.

Fu-hung Hsieh, a food engineer at the University of Missouri, and his research team used an extrusion process to make the product. A similar process is commonly used in the cereal and pet food industries to reshape and reconstruct food components by combining heat and pressure.

The breakthrough by Hsieh and his team was to give the imitation meat the same fibrous texture, and the same mouth feel of real chicken.

Once this was accomplished, it was a simple mater, said Hsieh, to add chicken taste and color by taking the flavor from chicken broth and using a browning agent.

"We have produced a healthy, nutritious, high-protein soy food," said Hsieh, who presented the results of his experiments last summer at the annual meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists in New Orleans.

Hsieh said the availability of soybeans and their health properties boost the market prospect for the meat analog, which could be on supermarket stores in a couple of years.

The chicken breast analog could be sold as a dehydrated product and require no refrigeration. Or, it could be sold with water added. The hydrated product would require no cooking, just warming in an oven or microwave oven.

The meat analog is 42.5 percent soy protein isolate, 42.5 percent defatted soy flour and 15 percent wheat starch. Water is then added to give the product its juiciness and enhance "mouth feel." The final product is about 70 percent water.

The cost?

A little less than chicken.

A number of food companies have expressed an interest in the new product, said Hsieh. "We're working with a few food companies to put the product on retail shelves."

Working with Hsieh on development of food products are assistant professor Yin Li, senior research specialist Harold Huff and Shyh-hsiang Lin, a graduate researcher. All are in the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.

Hsieh explained the process of converting powdery soybean protein flour to the fibrous structure of chicken breast.

"We first melt the soy protein," he said. "Then we realign the soy protein molecules in a cooling die at the exit of the extruder to form a continuous piece (or, chunk) of meat-like structure."

The food engineering laboratory at MU has a state-of-the-art twin-screw extruder, said Hsieh. "We can adjust the barrel temperature and screw speed settings so that soy protein will be melted in the extruder barrel but not over-heated.

"Then we can realign the soy protein molecules and form a meat-like fibrous structure," he said.

Hsieh said the coloring was perfect for chicken breast meat.

And another soybean product is born.,