Process for the production of a food ingredient constituted essentially of muscular protein fibers

A process for the production of a natural and gelling food ingredient constituted by proteins of muscular fibers from red meat muscular flesh or muscular flesh of fish, crustacea, mollusks, or cephalopods, comprising:

• a) subjecting the muscular flesh to a gentle destructuring to obtain particles having a size of not less than 1 mm in order not to damage the muscular fibers,
• b) continuously mixing the muscular flesh thus destructured with a predetermined volume of water for a period of 5 to 1800 seconds to obtain a mixture having a temperature in the range of 2.degree. to 15.degree. C.,
• c) thermally adjusting the temperature of the mixture to at least one precisely predetermined temperature in the range of 15.degree. to 45.degree. C., and maintaining the mixture at said predetermined temperature for a period of 60 to 300 seconds,
• d) subjecting the mixture thus thermally treated to fractionation centrifugally or by mechanical pressure so as to recover a solid phase, and
• e) rapidly cooling the recovered solid phase for a period of about 60 seconds to a temperature below 10.degree. C. to produce a natural and gelling food ingredient that contains 70% to 80% myofibrillar protein fibers which are not denatured.