Meat products are generally high in fat and salt contents and low in dietary fibre content. In this technology, process has been developed to prepare low fat, low salt and high dietary fibre functional nuggets from tough and low quality sheep meat. Instead of 2% sodium chloride, a blend of four GRAS chemicals namely potassium chloride, potassium lactate, tartaric acid and sucrose in combination with sodium chloride (1.2%) were used to get the product of same sensory and technological properties. Use of animal fat was substituted with 7% added sunflower oil. Carageenan and sodium alginate were used to get the same binding in this low fat meat product. Five different sources of dietary fibre-two grain hulls, two vegetables and one fruit pulp were used to enhance the fibre content of this low salt and low fat meat product. The developed functional mutton nuggets have 93% cooked yield and contains 16.3% protein, 9.6% fat. There is significant reduction in total lipid, cholesterol and sodium contents. Dietary fibre content of the product is 6.3% as compared to 0.8% in control nuggets. In sensory evaluation, the products has been rated as very good, while in consumer evaluation, 62.4% meat consumers very much liked the product, whereas 37% consumers liked the products. The products is shelf stable in vacuum packed pouches under refrigerated storage (4+1 °C) for more than 12 weeks without any marked effect on sensory, physico-chemical or microbiological quality. Thus this technology can ensure healthier, nutritious and palatable mutton nuggets to the health conscious consumers at affordable price.
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