Ultrasound: A promising technology to improve the technological quality of meat emulsions

Abstract

The use of ultrasound (US) has proven to be an effective tool in the preparation of emulsions. However, the cavitation phenomenon leads to an increase in temperature, which can affect the emulsion stability and the texture. Thus, different US operating modes (degas, normal, and sweep) were applied in meat emulsions for 5.5 min, at 25 kHz frequency and 60% amplitude, and the temperature behavior, yield, emulsion stability, texture, and lipid and protein oxidation were evaluated. The results showed that the wave propagation mode in the US bath exerts a great influence on the increase of temperature of meat emulsions. The distribution of cavitation in normal operating mode significantly favored (P < .001) a higher yield (88.7%) and emulsion stability, with good values of cohesiveness (0.76), hardness (26.9 N), and chewiness (26.1 N), not increasing lipid and protein oxidation. Therefore, this study has proven that that the use of normal US operating mode improved the technological quality of meat emulsions.

Keywords: Emulsified meat products; Emulsion; Isoelectric point; Operation mode; Temperature; Ultrasound.