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. 2024 Oct 9:9:100877.
doi: 10.1016/j.crfs.2024.100877. eCollection 2024.

Understanding the role of CaCl2 in salt substitute for low-salt and high-quality surimi products

Xinyan Tong  1 , Yijin Liu  1 , Ganping Wei  1 , Nasra Seif Juma  1 , Fang Tian  1 , Dieynabou Diao  1 , Meiling Chen  1 , Bin Zheng  1 , Yadong Zhao  1   2
Affiliations

Understanding the role of CaCl2 in salt substitute for low-salt and high-quality surimi products

Xinyan Tong et al. Curr Res Food Sci. .

Abstract

Salt substitute has been widely used to prepare low-salt foods due to potential health benefits, though the role of CaCl2 in salt substitute and its unique impacts on food quality have been rarely investigated. In this study, comprehensive research has been conducted to elucidate the effects of replacing NaCl with varying concentrations of CaCl2 on the surimi gel characteristics. The introduction of CaCl2 interacted with surimi proteins differently from NaCl, thus leading to difference in protein aggregation behaviors and surimi gel properties. It has been found that a proper proportion of CaCl2 for NaCl substitution could create salt bridges between surimi proteins more effectively, resulting in an ordered, smooth and dense gel network with an increased water holding capacity (WHC) and improved gel strength. Furthermore, TGase activated by Ca 2+ boosted the formation of ε-(γ-glutamyl) lysine bonds, which cross-linked surimi proteins to form a firm gel with a better three-dimensional structure. However, replacing NaCl with excessive amount of CaCl2 as divalent salts induced more serious protein aggregation, leading to water loss and gel properties deterioration. More specially, replacing NaCl with CaCl2 at 50% showed the best performance, as evidenced by the most abundant disulfide bonds and hydrophobic interactions, highest hardness and chewiness, and greatest storage modulus. This study provided new insights on developing high-quality surimi gels with significantly reduced salt concentration and improved gel characteristics.

Keywords: CaCl2; Gel properties; NaCl; Salt replacement; Surimi gel.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image 1
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Dynamic rheological characterization of surimi gels with different ratios of CaCl2 replacing NaCl. Storage modulus G′ (a) and loss modulus G′′ (b).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Characterization of surimi gels with different ratios of CaCl2 replacing NaCl. Protein conformational changes (a), Raman spectra (b), LF-NMR spectra (c) and water distribution (d).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Morphological profiles of surimi gels without salt and with the addition of different CaCl2 concentrations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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