Effect of high voltage electrostatic field treatment on thawing characteristics and post-thawing quality of lightly salted, frozen pork tenderloin

Abstract

The thawing characteristics, initial thawing mechanism and post-thawing quality of lightly salted, frozen pork tenderloin following the use of high-voltage electrostatic fields (HVEFs) were investigated in this study. The thawing rate increased with increasing salt concentrations for pork thawed by a −10 kV or −15 kV HVEF. Thermal property values of pork changed with increasing salt concentration (0–6%). HVEFs could enhance salt diffusion during the thawing process. The pork tenderloin thawed using HVEFs had significantly less drip loss (P < 0.05) than occurred during air thawing, which was also proven by the myosin denaturation enthalpy (−0.05 ± 0.03 J/g for the air-thawed samples and −0.24 ± 0.03 for the −10 kV HVEF-thawed samples). Additionally, there is apparent sample grouping with respect to the thawing methods between 30 ms–100 ms after PCA analysis. Thawing with −10 kV and −15 kV HVEFs resulted in a 0.5 log reduction in the number of Pseudomonas in the pork tenderloin compared with the number in the air-thawed group at day 0.