Encapsulation of Meat Product Ingredients and Influence on Product Quality

Abstract

For centuries, meat and meat products have been considered important for optimal human growth and development as a significant source of meat proteins, energy and other nutrients. In the 1990s, with new scientific insights, people showed greater interest in food with bioactive or functional components and the demand for natural, organic and/or clean label meat products also increased. These active and bioactive compounds undergo different reactions in meat systems. To prevent rapid degradation and undesirable reactions and to maintain full functionality, these compounds should be stabilized or immobilized before addition. Encapsulation entraps these compounds within a carrier material, thus enabling them to react in food systems and provides their targeted release during retail storage.

Encapsulation of fish oil and essential oils (e.g. clove) in a pH sensitive matrix, which remains intact at rumen pH, but is broken down at lower pH in the abomasum, provides oil absorption in the small intestine, improvement of fatty acid profile and prolonged oxidative stability of beef. Different encapsulation techniques have been used to immobilize plant- and herb-sourced bioactive compounds with antioxidant and antibacterial activity to enable their protection as well as controlled and targeted release into meat systems. Different oils (fish, flaxseed, grapeseed) were encapsulated by different techniques (spray-drying, electrostatic extrusion) and imported in meat systems (dry-fermented sausages, frankfurters), resulting in improved fatty acid profile, while encapsulation provided oxidative stability. Moreover, edible oils could be stabilized in emulsion-type systems by means of different strategies, including organogelation, oil bulking, structured emulsions and double emulsions. Encapsulation of probiotics provided protection during fermentation/drying process in dry-fermented sausages. When designing active packaging systems, appropriate encapsulation techniques could provide protection for active compounds during their incorporation into packaging materials and targeted release during meat storage. Immobilization techniques hence became a stepin meat processing, enabling the preparation of different, primarily non-meat components (with bioactive compounds), for their optimal use.