Ultrasound combined with carrageenan and curdlan addition improved the gelation properties of low-salt chicken meat paste

Abstract

Excess Na+ intake can easily lead to chronic diseases, whereas the sodium salt plays very important role in maintaining meat product quality. To overcome the low-salt induced deterioration, the ultrasound treatment (UT) was coupled with polysaccharide addition (PS) to improve the gelation properties of low-salt chicken meat product. Carrageenan (CAR) and curdlan (CUD) were chosen as PS sources. The application of UT, CAR, CUD could all effectively decrease cooking loss, and CUD group showed lowest cooking loss. However, CUD and CUD-UT treatment both reduced the gel hardness significantly, while CAR and CAR-UT showed greatly positive effects on texture. CAR/CUD decreased the whiteness of gels, while the corporation with UT diminished the negative impact. UT could improve gel quality of CAR group by lowering the particle size, making polymers more evenly distributed and increasing viscosity. UT showed different influence on CAR and CUD samples, which is probably induced by various water distribution population in these groups. Overall, CAR-UT showed the best quality, which provides important information for development of low-salt meat products.