| Summary: | Processed meat has become stigmatized as unhealthy food due to the recent research correlating increased consumption of processed meat to several chronic diseases such as colorectal cancer, coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The high levels of fat (especially saturated fat), cholesterol, sodium, or additives (e.g. nitrites and nitrates) of meat products are the main risk factors for these diseases.
Consequently, the meat industry has been applying reformulation strategies to develop new healthier products by reducing the saturated fat and adding unsaturated fatty acids, in line with public health recommendations. However, these changes may compromise the acceptability of the products. Thus, it is important to consider how they should be added. Gel systems have shown great advantages as animal fat replacers in meat products as stable and easy to prepare systems, with a solid structure, similar to animal fat.
A variety of healthier meat products (dry fermented, fresh and cooked products) were developed in this work through reformulation strategies focused on replacing animal fat by gel systems containing bioactive compounds.
Hydrogel oil-in-water emulsions (HG) and organogels (OG) were formulated with different fat content (1%, 40% or 88%) including vegetable and marine oils (canola, linseed and algae oils) as source of unsaturated fatty acids, a natural extract of Prunus spinosa L. with high antioxidant activity, and plant sterol esters, known to have a cholesterol-lowering effect.
The addition of a low-fat HG (1%) to beef patties resulted in high reductions of fat (up to 70%). On the other hand, both dry fermented (chorizo), fresh (beef patties) and cooked (meat batters) products formulated with medium-fat HG (40%) and high-fat OG (88%) improved their fatty acid profile due to the supply of unsaturated fatty acids and the reduction of saturated fat.
According to the European legislation, the reformulated meat products may bear nutrition and health claims, which may have a positive effect on the consumer acceptance, increasingly concerned about their health. Additionally, physicochemical properties such as texture, color or lipid oxidation, as well as sensory properties, were not negatively affected by the addition of these gel systems.
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