Natural Vegetables Extracts as Alternative to Nitrite in some Meat Products

Abstract

Production of high-quality and healthy cured meat products became crucial to consumers’ demand. Nitrite salts are conventionally applied as curing compounds in meat products many years ago, for their ability to produce cured pink color, improve flavor, delay rancidity, in addition to its antimicrobial effect. Although legislations recently have been settled to reduce the permissible limit of nitrite added to meat products, WHO reported that consumption of cured meat products processed with salt and nitrite to enhance flavor and improve preservation is carcinogenic, this may be due to the formation of N-nitroso-compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which classified as a potentially carcinogenic chemical. In turn, consumers became worried and looking forward to prohibiting synthetic nitrite in meat processing. As a result, meat processors strive in searching for natural nitrite replacers to enhance both the color and stability of meat products. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the efficacy of red beet and radish powders as natural alternative to nitrite in oriental sausage processing, an independent three replicates at different times were performed and the quality parameters of sausage were screened throughout three months of frozen storage. Four groups of sausage were produced as following: - The first group (N) was produced with100ppm sodium nitrite, while sodium nitrite was substituted in 2nd group (BR) and 3rd group (R) with 0.065% experimentally produced red bee root and radish powder respectively. The 4th group (NBR) was produced with 100ppm of sodium nitrite and 0.065% red beetroot powder and aerobically stored frozen (-18°C). The produced sausage was investigated for their sensory attributes, instrumental color, pH, residual nitrite, and microbial load at the day of production (zero time) then every month for 3 months during frozen storage at -18°C.