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Abstract The primary purposes of curing meat are development of cured meat flavor and cured meat color. In addition, meat curing for Chinese-style sausage was used as a means of preserving meat during times of low meat prices in the Taiwan meat industry. In actual practice, the ground lean meat was solely mixed with the salt, sugar, spices and sodium nitrite, and then stored in a refrigerator for storage. Experiments were designed to determine the effects of modified atmospheres treatment (air control, vacuum, 100% N2, 100%CO2) and storage temperatures (0℃, 4℃, 8℃) on the chemical and microbial properties of lean meat in curing procedure. The results showed that 100%CO2 at 0℃ restricted the growth of all organisms (p<0.05) on curing lean meat. Among the treatments, the air control had the highest total plate count (TPC). The counts were greater than 1.0×107 (CFU/g) for the 11th day at 8℃, for the 21th day at 4℃ and for the 49th day at 0℃. The curing lean meat exhibited signs of spoilage since a spoilage odor was detected for these samples. Regardless of modified atmosphere treatments aod storage temperatures, a reduction in residual nitrite with increased curing time for all samples. The minimum amount of residual nitrite content in curing lean meat was obtained from 100%CO2 at 8℃. The TBA results indicated the air control had higher values than other modified atmosphere treatments. However, no significant difference( existed among other modified atmosphere treatments. For all samples, TBA values tended to slightly increase over storage time.The air control group had the lowest Hunter a values (redness) on surface and in interior of curing lean meat; on the other hand, the Hunter L values (brightness) and Hunter b values (yellowness) were significantly different( p<0.05) for 100%CO2 at 0℃ and 4℃. In summary, curing lean meat treated by modified atmosphere appear to be a feasible method of maintaining desirable curing lean meat characteristics for an extended period of time when stored at refrigerator temperature. And 100%CO2 at 0℃curing procedure is indicated for the best acceptance.
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