Why there is a growing demand toward phosphate free processed meat products?

Why there is a growing demand toward phosphate free processed meat products?

Author(s): Samer Mudalal, Massimiliano Petracci, Silvia Tappi, Pietro Rocculi, Claudio Cavani

Due to the current modern comfort life, consumer attitude is shifting more toward easy to prepare, convenient, and attractive processed meat products which had led to put more pressure on meat industry to employ different additives during formulation to meet consumer demands. Phosphates components are considered as a master additives in processed meat products because they play multifaceted role in meat products by improving the flavor, texture and juiciness as well as product stability during storage. Recently, several health organizations and governmental bodies started to warn from using of phosphates due to their nutritional drawbacks that come from their ability to interfere the absorption of some minerals in the gut in particular calcium and magnesium. Therefore, consumers have currently bad reputation about phosphates. In addition, several countries have banned their use in raw meat production. In response to these nutritional drawbacks, several attempts have being emerged to evaluate the use of some functional ingredients to replace phosphate in meat products. It is a great challenge to find an ingredient that can work in multifaceted functional way as phosphate does. In this context, sodium bicarbonate is one of proposed ingredient to replace phosphates in processed meat products.

This issue raises some questions: is it possible to formulate phosphate free processed meat products? Can sodium bicarbonate replace phosphates in processed meat products at the same time keeping the quality traits as phosphate does?

The study of Petracci et al from department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at University of Bologna, Italy, published in Food and Nutrition Sciences 2013 vol.5 by SCIRP publishingwas done trying to find answers for these questions. His team studied the differences in quality traits between phosphate and bicarbonate-marinated chicken breast cooked under different heat treatments. This study revealed that using of sodium bicarbonate instead of phosphate can impart similar quality traits for marinated breast meat in comparison to breast treated with phosphate. Interestingly, they found that sodium bicarbonate improved the ability of meat to retain water during process which can add more economical value for meat industry. Based on the former results, bicarbonate could be a promising agent to replace phosphate in meat formulation.