Dry cured low-fat rabbit sausage: A much healthier disruptive food that enhances rabbit meat consumption

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to develop a fuet from rabbit meat with reduced fat and salt content to encourage rabbit consumption and to find out consumer preference for this innovative food compared to retail fuet. Two products were designed: F5, containing fat and F4, where fatty tissue was substituted by konjac gum. In both, salt was partially substituted by KCl. These products, in comparison to commercial ones (pork, chicken and turkey), showed a reduction of at least 40% in the total energy value while protein raised on average 57.81% because of the lower fat content of rabbit and konjac gum use. In addition, there was a decrease in the salt content of approximately 19.50%. The above represents a huge competitive advantage for these new products from a nutritional point of view. The rabbit fuets were characterised by a spicy taste, slightly sour smell, and succulence, lower than in commercial fuets. It could be concluded that the rabbit fuet had a higher protein and lower fat and salt content than commercial fuets. However, they were less juicy and less succulent and therefore consumers preferred the commercial ones. The use of konjac gum does not seem to have any effect on this type of cured product.