Effects of tomato peel as fat replacement on the texture, moisture migration, and sensory quality of sausages with varied fat levels

Abstract

The influence of tomato peel powder on the water holding capacity, microstructural character, and sensory quality of reduced-fat sausages during storage was investigated. In this work, rough tomato peels were crushed to powders of 0.15- and 0.025-mm particle sizes by conventional crushing and airflow ultramicro-crushing, respectively. Replacing fat with tomato powder significantly increased the amount of free water in sausages after storage, as determined by low-field nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. However, less free water was present in sausage samples that were already of the reduced-fat variety. Sausages with the conventional mechanically crushed tomato powder showed denser and more compact structures than sausages with those using the airflow ultramicro-crushed powder. Compared to the case of sausages with higher levels (3%) of tomato peel, granulation was more obvious (p < 0.05) in samples with lower levels of tomato peel (0.5%), and more pores were observed in the samples with higher tomato powder content. The results indicated that low doses of conventionally crushed tomato powder as a potential fat substitute could be used in the sausage industry.

Keywords

• Fat replacement
• microstructure character
• food quality control
• low-field NMR