Quality characteristics of chicken meat cutlets incorporated with oat flour (Avena sativa)

Introduction

Consumer awareness regarding the relationship between diet and health has increased considerably in recent years, leading to a growing demand for functional foods that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Functional meat products have emerged as an important category of value-added foods due to their potential to combine the nutritional advantages of meat with health-promoting ingredients derived from plant sources. The incorporation of dietary fibre-rich ingredients into meat products has gained significant attention as an effective strategy to improve nutritional quality, enhance technological properties, and meet consumer preferences for healthier food products (Verma et al., 2012). Chicken meat is widely consumed throughout the world because of its high nutritional value, excellent protein quality, low fat content, and desirable sensory characteristics. It serves as an important source of essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals, making it an ideal raw material for the development of processed meat products. Among poultry products, chicken cutlets are highly popular owing to their convenience, palatability, and consumer acceptability. However, conventional chicken cutlets contain negligible amounts of dietary fibre, which has encouraged researchers to explore the incorporation of plant-based functional ingredients into meat formulations (Talukder and Sharma, 2010). Oats (Avena sativa) are recognized as one of the most important functional cereal grains because of their rich nutritional composition and health-promoting properties. Oats contain significant amounts of soluble dietary fibre, particularly β-glucan, which has been reported to reduce serum cholesterol levels, improve glycaemic response, and promote gastrointestinal health. In addition, oats are a valuable source of proteins, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and bioactive compounds such as avenanthramides (Kumar et al., 2016). Due to their excellent water-holding and fat-binding capacities, oats have been successfully incorporated into various meat products to improve cooking yield, texture, and nutritional quality (Serdaroglu, 2006) [22,18,22] .

The incorporation of oats into meat products offers several technological and nutritional advantages. Dietary fibre from these cereal grains can improve water-holding capacity, cooking yield, texture, and storage stability while simultaneously reducing fat content and increasing fibre levels. Furthermore, the presence of bioactive compounds and antioxidants may contribute to improved shelf life and product quality during storage (Talukder and Sharma, 2010; Gupta et al., 2017) [18,6] . Considering the increasing consumer preference for healthier meat products and the nutritional potential of oats, the present investigation was undertaken to develop functional chicken cutlets incorporated with oat flour. The study aimed to evaluate the effects of different incorporation levels on physicochemical characteristics, proximate composition, sensory quality, microbiological quality, and refrigerated storage stability of the developed products.

Materials and mdthods 2.1 Procurement of Raw Materials

Broiler birds were culled and slaughtered by using halal method in the slaughter house. The dressed broiler carcasses were deboned by removing fat, tendons and connective tissue and the boneless chicken was used for the further use. The frozen deboned meat was drawn as per requirement and thawed overnight in a refrigerator (4±1ºC) and were used for further study. Oats (Avena sativa) were purchased from the local market of Anand and were grinded and made a fine powder in the department of Livestock Products Technology and was used for the further use and the other condiments and spices were also purchased from the local market of Anand. All the chemicals used in the study were purchased from standard firms (Hi media). Condiments mix was prepared by peeling off onion, ginger and garlic, cutting in to small pieces and mixing it in mixer in the ratio of 4:2:1.

Methodology for preparation of chicken meat cutlets

Frozen deboned chicken meat was thawed, trimmed, and cut into small pieces before being minced twice through a meat mincer fitted with a 6 mm diameter plate. The minced meat was subsequently used for the preparation of chicken cutlets. The formulation and preparation procedure were adopted with slight modifications from the method described by Singh et al., (2014). Oat flour was incorporated separately at 5%, 10%, and 15% levels by partially replacing lean chicken meat in the cutlet formulation.

pH

The pH of chicken meat cutlets was determining by method of Trout et al., (1992) [20] .

Product yield

The product yield was calculated as:

Proximate composition

Moisture, crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, ash and calcium content of chicken meat cutlets were determined by standard procedure of Association of Office Chemist (AOAC, 1995) [1] .

Microbiological analysis

Standard plate counts, Psychrophilic counts and Coliform counts were enumerated following the method described by American Public Health Association (APHA, 2001) [2] .

Sensory evaluation

The sensory evaluation of the chicken meat cutlets was carried out by a panel of seven members from the College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Anand. The samples were assessed for general appearance, flavour, juiciness, texture, and overall acceptability following the 8point descriptive sensory scale described by Keeton (1983) [7] , where a score of 8 indicated "extremely desirable" and a score of 1 indicated "extremely undesirable." Sensory evaluation was conducted in a well-illuminated room free from distracting noise and odours to ensure unbiased assessment. Plain drinking water was provided to the panelists for rinsing their mouths between successive samples to minimize any carry-over effects.

Statistical analysis

The experimental data generated from each trial were subjected to statistical analysis using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and treatment means were compared using Duncan's Multiple Range Test (DMRT) following the procedures described by Snedecor and Cochran (1994) [17] . Each experiment was conducted in three independent replicates, and all physicochemical and microbiological analyses were performed in duplicate, except for sensory evaluation, which was carried out by the sensory panel. [18,13,8,5] . T 1 -Control, T 2 -Chicken cutlets with 5% Oats, T 3 -Chicken cutlets with 10% Oats, T 4 -Chicken cutlets with 15% Oats. Significant (P<0.05) differences were observed in the proximate composition of oat-incorporated chicken cutlets (Table 3.2). Moisture, ash and crude fibre contents increased significantly with increasing levels of oat flour, whereas crude protein and crude fat decreased. The increase in moisture content can be attributed to the excellent waterholding capacity of oat dietary fibre, particularly β-glucan.

Results and discussion

The reduction in protein and fat was mainly due to the replacement of lean meat with oat flour, while the increase in ash reflected the mineral-rich nature of oats. A marked increase in crude fibre demonstrated the nutritional enhancement of the developed product. Similar observations were reported by Kumar et [8,22,10,12,5] . T1-Control, T2-Chicken cutlets with 5% Oats, T3-Chicken cutlets with 10% Oats, T4-Chicken cutlets with 15% Oats. Sensory attributes were significantly (P<0.05) influenced by oat flour incorporation (Table 3.3). Although all treatments remained within the acceptable sensory range, scores for general appearance, flavour, texture, juiciness and overall acceptability decreased with increasing oat levels. The reduction in sensory scores at higher incorporation levels may be attributed to changes in colour, flavour profile and texture caused by the increased fibre content of oats. Nevertheless, the 5% oat treatment exhibited sensory scores comparable to the control, indicating good consumer acceptability. Similar findings were reported by Talukder and Sharma (2010), Gupta et al., (2017), and Gamit et al., (2020) [18,6,5] , who observed slight reductions in sensory scores with increasing cereal incorporation while maintaining acceptable product quality. T 1 -Control, T 2 -Chicken cutlets with 5% Oats, T 3 -Chicken cutlets with 10% Oats, T 4 -Chicken cutlets with 15% Oats. Refrigerated storage significantly (P<0.05) influenced the pH of oat-incorporated chicken cutlets (Table 3.4). A gradual decline in pH was observed in all treatments from day 0 to day 9, with T4 consistently exhibiting the lowest pH values. The decrease in pH during storage may be attributed to the production of acidic metabolites by spoilage microorganisms and biochemical changes occurring within the meat matrix. Similar observations have been reported by Talukder and Sharma (2010), Kumar et al., (2016), and Gupta et al., (2017) [18, 6] during refrigerated storage of fibre-enriched chicken product. [11,4,19] , who observed progressive increases in microbial counts during refrigerated storage of chicken products. Coliform bacteria were not detected in any treatment throughout the refrigerated storage period. The absence of coliforms indicates satisfactory hygienic quality of the product and effectiveness of the cooking process in eliminating these microorganisms. Proper sanitation during processing, handling, packaging, and storage also contributed to maintaining microbiological safety. Similar findings have been reported by Bhat et al., (2014) and Malav et al., (2015) [3, 9] , who observed no detectable coliforms in refrigerated meat products prepared under hygienic processing conditions. [18,6] , who reported a gradual decline in sensory acceptability of oat-incorporated chicken products during refrigerated storage.

References

1. AOAC. Official methods of analysis. 16th ed. Arlington (VA): Association of Official Analytical Chemists; 1995.
2. APHA. Compendium of methods for the microbiological examination of foods. 4th ed. Washington (DC): American Public Health Association; 2001.
3. Bhat ZF, Kumar S, Kumar P. Effect of aloe vera on the quality characteristics and storage stability of chicken sausages. Nutr Food Sci. 2014;44(6):563-573.
4. Bhat ZF, Morton JD, Mason SL, Bekhit AED, Bhat HF. Technological, oxidative and sensory quality of meat products during refrigerated storage: A review. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2015;55:1-16.
5. Keeton JT. Effects of fat and sodium chloride/phosphate levels on the chemical and sensory properties of pork patties. J Food Sci. 1983;48(3):878-881.
6. Kumar V, Biswas AK, Chatli MK, Sahoo J. Effect of oat flour incorporation on the quality characteristics of chicken meat patties. J Food Sci Technol. 2011;48:105111.
7. Malav OP, Sharma BD, Talukder S, Kumar RR. Quality characteristics and storage stability of functional meat products incorporated with vegetable powders. Vet World. 2015;8:740-746.
8. Modi VK, Yashoda KP, Naveena BM, Mahendrakar NS. Low-fat meat products: Effect of cereal and dietary fibre incorporation on quality characteristics. J Muscle Foods. 2009;20:132-145.
9. Najeeb AP, Mandal PK, Biswas AK, Pal UK. Effect of natural antioxidants on quality and storage stability of restructured chicken slices under refrigerated conditions. J Food Sci Technol. 2014;51:272-279.
10. Naveen Z, Mendiratta SK, Anjaneyulu ASR, Kondaiah N. Quality characteristics of functional meat products incorporated with oat flour. Indian J Poult Sci. 2017;52:87-92.
11. Serdaroğlu M. Improving low-fat meatball characteristics by using whey powder. Meat Sci. 2006;72(1):155-163.
12. Serdaroğlu M, Yıldız-Turp G, Abrodímov K. Quality of low-fat meat products containing cereal fibres. Meat Sci. 2005;71:312-318.
13. Singh PK, Kumar S, Kumar P, Bhat ZF. Effect of mincing on the quality characteristics of chevon cutlets. J Anim Res. 2014;4(2):193-200.
14. Snedecor GW, Cochran WG. Statistical methods. 8th ed. Ames (IA): Iowa State University Press; 1994.
15. Talukder S, Sharma DP. Development of dietary fibrerich chicken meat patties using oat bran. J Food Sci Technol. 2010;47:224-229.
16. Thomas R, Anjaneyulu ASR, Kondaiah N. Effect of refrigerated storage on microbiological quality of chicken patties. Indian J Poult Sci. 2007;42:310-314.
17. Trout ES, Hunt MC, Johnson DE, Claus JR, Kastner CL, Kropf DH. Characteristics of low fat ground beef containing texture modifying ingredients. J Food Sci. 1992;57:19-24.
18. Trout GR, Hunt MC, Johnson DE, Claus JR, Kastner CL, Kropf DH, Stroda S. Chemical, physical and sensory characteristics of ground beef containing different levels of fat. J Food Sci. 1992;57:25-29.
19. Verma AK, Banerjee R, Sharma BD. Quality characteristics of functional chicken nuggets incorporated with cereal fibres. J Food Sci Technol. 2012;49:593-600.