Efficacy of leaves (drumstick, mint and curry leaves) powder as natural preservatives in restructured chicken block.

The use of natural preservatives to increase the shelf-life of meat products is promising as they possess antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. Earlier, a highly acceptable restructured chicken slice without the addition of extra fat was developed in the same laboratory which was acceptable up to 10th day of storage under refrigeration and spoilage was mainly due to oxidation. Hence, the present study was planned to determine the efficacy of certain plant leaves' (drumstick, mint and curry leaves) powder at 1 % level as natural preservatives to enhance the shelf life of restructured chicken slices under refrigerated storage. The quality attributes of the products containing different natural preservativs were compared with the control and reference products. The control product contained no preservative and the reference product contained BHT (200 ppm) only. Incorporation of the leaf powders at 1 % level did not show any significant differences for both cooking yield (99.5-99.6 %) and proximate composition (moisture 72.2-72.3 %, protein 19.2-19.4 %, fat 4.2-4.3 % and total ash 2.3-2.4 %) of the restructured chicken slices compared to both control and reference products during storage. All products containing leaf powders showed significantly (P < 0.01) lower microbial counts (2.9-3.7 log10 CFU/g) compared to both control and BHT added products. Yeast and mould were not detected in any of the products throughout the storage period. Sensory evaluation scores showed that the restructured chicken slices incorporated with the leaf powders were as acceptable as the reference product and rated good to very good for appearance, flavor, juiciness and overall acceptability. Restructured chicken slices with the leaf powders could be safely stored without much loss in quality up to 20 days under refrigeration.

Development of restructured chicken block utilizing gizzard and its refrigerated storage stability.

A study was planned to develop restructured chicken product by incorporating optimum level of gizzard and fat and evaluate their quality attributes under refrigerated storage condition (4 ± 10 C). Incorporation of gizzard did not show any change in pH, but cooking yield reduced significantly (P < 0.05) at 40% level. There was a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in fat content and increase in protein and ash content with increase in the level of gizzard in the formulation. Significant (P < 0.05) improvement in the sensory attributes of chicken blocks was noticed by addition of gizzard. Incorporation of fat resulted in no change in pH, significant (P < 0.05) reduction in cooking yield, moisture and protein content and increase in fat and total ash content. Products incorporated with fat rated better than control for various sensory attributes. Significant (P < 0.05) increase in thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS), tyrosine value, stand plate count and psychrophilic count was observed during refrigerated storage (4 ± 10 C) in both control (no gizzard and fat) and test chicken blocks incorporated with gizzard and fat. The restructured chicken products were found acceptable up to 10 days under refrigerated storage condition (4 ± 10 C).