The grape-rice combination was also associated with improvements in overall quality of the resulting product, according to findings published in Meat Science, showing the potential to produce meat emulsions with enhanced stability.
With obesity levels rising across the globe, consumers are increasingly seeking out low-fat and low-calorie versions of their favourite foods. As a result reduction of fat in products is a growing area of interest to food manufacturers.
The new study, led by Cheon-Jei Kim from Konkuk University in Korea, indicated that reduced fat meat products can be formulated by substituting pork fat with the the grape seed oil and rice bran fibre combination.
The Korean researchers showed that replacing 50 per cent pork back fat with pre-emulsified grape seed oil allowed the overall fat content of the resulting meat to be reduced from 30 to 20 per cent.
In addition to the improvements in fat content, increases in scores for cohesiveness, gumminess, and chewiness, were recorded in the grape seed oil-rice bran fibre meat emulsions.
“The reduced-fat samples with increasing grape seed oil concentrations had lower cooking loss, emulsion stability, and apparent viscosity,” noted Kim and co-workers.
“The incorporation of grape seed oil and rice bran fiber successfully reduced the animal fat content in the final products while improving other characteristics,” they concluded.
Meat market potential
According to a 2009 report from FFT, the market for processed meat in Europe was valued at a whopping €118 billion in 2008, and forecast to grow at 0.9 per cent.
The largest market is Germany, which gobbles up 33 per cent of the Western Europe’s meat, and is followed by France and Italy. The top five countries, including the UK and Spain, make up 80 per cent of the market for processed meat in Western Europe.
The FFT report also noted that nured meat is the larget product category, and is valued at a tasty €42.7 billion, followed by bacon and ham, which is worth €35.1 billion.
Source: Meat Science
Volume 84, Issue 1, Pages 212-218
“Optimization of replacing pork back fat with grape seed oil and rice bran fiber for reduced-fat meat emulsion systems”
Authors: Y.-S. Choi, J.-H. Choi, D.-J. Han, H.-Y. Kim, M.-A. Lee, H.-W. Kim, J.-W. Lee, H.-J. Chung, C.-J. Kim