Changes in oxidation, color and texture deteriorations during refrigerated storage of ohmically and water bath-cooked pork meat

Abstract

In the present work, changes in lipid and protein oxidation, non-heme iron (NHI) content, color and texture parameters during refrigerated storage (7 days/4 °C) of ohmically (OH) and water bath (WB)-cooked pork meat were studied. A significant effect of refrigerated storage duration and cooking method on color, texture, lipid oxidation and carbonyl content was detected for OH-cooked and WB-cooked meat. The OH-cooked meat had better color appearance, lipid oxidative stability, slightly enhanced hardness and protein oxidation levels during 7 days of storage having lower values of TBARS, center lightness (L⁎), center/surface brownness (b⁎) and free thiol groups; however, there were higher values of center/surface redness (a⁎), non-heme iron, protein carbonyl and hardness compared to those from WB-cooked meat. The conventional cooking protocols always result in quality deteriorations and reduced shelf-life in meat products due to longer cooking times. In this study, the ohmically-cooked meat showed comparable or improved oxidation levels, color appearance and texture attributes during 7 days of refrigerated storage. From an anti-oxidation perspective, the available data are provided for the application of ohmic cooking in Chinese commercial productions of cooked meat with high quality requirements that could be established.