CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Pre-cooked pasta, in particular lasagna, plays an important role in the market of chilled ready to serve meals. In this work we analyzed the evolution of the most important physical and sensory quality attributes of lasagna sheets during its refrigerated storage, at 0, 4 and 10 ºC. The quality of ready meal deteriorates with storage time, and food looses its freshness condition. The same behavior was observed for all analyzed characteristics: as the storage temperature increases, reaction rate (measured by the kinetic constant and activation energy) also increases, confirming the influence of temperature in quality loss. Besides, overall acceptability was the more sensitive attribute to temperature changes, with Q10 equal to 4, indicating an indirect but strong dependence of consumers? opinion on storage temperature. Finally, shelf life models, based on sensory analysis and on microbial spoilage, were compared, showing that the adopted sensory score determines which criterion is more restrictive. Kinetic data provides a useful tool to control the storage, ensuring good safety and sensory quality.