Fat Substitution: Some Strategies to Obtain Healthy Meat Products with Improved Technological Characteristics.

ROMERO, MARA CRISTINA; FERNÁNDEZ, CARINA LORENA; FOGAR, RICARDO ALEJANDRO; DOVAL, MIRTHA MARINA; ROMERO, ANA MARÍA; JUDIS, MARÍA ALICIA

Meat Products: Chemistry, Consumption and Health Aspects

Nova Science Pulishers

Año: 2021; p. 161 - 206

Meat products are an important source of nutrients as they provide high-qualityproteins, minerals as iron and zinc, and most of the B-vitamin complex (B1,B2, niacin, B6, and B12). However, these products are also high in energy andfat content, being this fat content and/or the lipid profile often questioned byexperts and consumers, since both have been historically associated with thedevelopment of various diseases, such as obesity, hypertension, and coronaryheart disease. Thus several strategies have been proposed to obtain low-fatproducts with healthy lipid profiles, being the most widely used the decreasein the fat content by partially or totally replacing it with different types ofcarbohydrates or vegetable and animal proteins to obtain low-fat products; orreplacing fat by polyunsaturated oils (raw, emulsified, gelled, encapsulated,etc.) to obtain meat products of improved lipid profile. However, thesestrategies generate new technological problems as the modification of texturalproperties, increased cooking loss and shrinkage, increased lipid oxidationduring the processing and/or storage if unsaturated lipids were added, amongothers. All these problems have implications for consumer acceptance andmust be considered to obtain meat products with quality sufficient to satisfyconsumers. Consequently, in this chapter we revise some of the most relevantstrategies aimed at obtaining meat products with low-fat content and/or withan improved lipid profile, as well as their impact on both technologicalproperties and the acceptance of these products by consumers.