Agarose/konjac glucomannan double network hydrogels to mimic the texture of beef tripe

Beef tripe is widely consumed in the world due to its favorable texture. However, the large-scale cultivation of cattle for producing tripe would exacerbate living environment, and therefore the development of artificial beef tripe is necessary. To imitate the texture of authentic beef tripe, we fabricated the agarose (AR)/konjac glucomannan (KGM) double network hydrogels (DNs) with outstanding mechanical properties using heating-cooling combined with sodium carbonate immersion strategy, and further compared them with beef tripe. Notably, the optimized DNs demonstrated a significantly increased mechanical strength of 450% and 340% than single AR and KGM gels, respectively. Further study revealed that the soft networks (KGM) mainly maintained the elasticity of the hydrogels, whereas the rigid networks (AR) were integrated inside the large soft network framework and acted as “load carriers” to efficiently dissipate energy. Correlation analysis and sensory attributes analysis indicated that the AR/KGM DNs with a mass ratio of 1:4 presented the most comparable texture properties with beef reticulum and rumen cooked, showing the great potential as artificial beef tripe.