Compositional Factors that Influence Lipid Peroxidation in Beef Juice and Standard Sausages

In order to identify how different additives influenced lipid peroxidation formation, a sausage only using beef juice as pigment source and a standard beef-pork meat sausage were studied. The effects of different additives, including fish oil, myoglobin, nitrite, clove extract, and calcium sources on oxidation and sensory properties were examined. Both sausage systems were stored in 3 different manners prior to testing: (1) frozen immediately at -80 °C; (2) chilled stored for 2.5 weeks followed by fluorescent light illumination at 4 °C for another 2 wk; (3) frozen at -20 °C for 5 mo. The frozen group 3 showed the highest peroxide formation and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) for both sausage systems. Unpolar peroxides dominated in both systems. The clove extract could offset the peroxide formation from myoglobin/beef juice and/or fish oil, but the addition of clove flavor was recognized by the sensory panelists. Calcium addition reduced lipid peroxide formation. Added nitrite and fish oil seemed to interact to stimulate nitroso-myoglobin formation. Nitrite was identified to interact with clove addition and thereby, relatively speaking, increased TBARS. The 2 sausage systems generally ranked the additives similarly as pro- and antioxidants.