Storage Stability Of Ready-to-eat Sea Cucumber

Sea cumbers are one of the species of holothuroids, all belonging exclusively to the family Holothumidea, are the most common marine invertebrates. Sea cucumbers contain rich active ingredient in a variety of pharmacological effects.Nowadays, sea cucumber is often processed into instant product form for the convenience of consumers. The ready-to-eat sea cucumber loses its elasticity and the sensory characteristics gradually during storage which become one of the vital problems of sea cucumber processing. Improving the storage stability of ready-to-eat sea cucumber and producing taste better products become the needs of sea cucumber industry.In order to resolve the problem of short shelf life, studying about key processing technology and quality change of ready-to-eat sea cucumber during storage is discussed, and new product with long shelf life and good taste is developed. All these research would benefit for the development of sea cumber industry.Based on the above reasons, this paper studied the key processing technologies and effect of storage time and discipline of degradation on storage characteristic of sea cumber. The mechanism of collagen which was crosslinked by Fructus Chebulae and Gallnut extract was studied. Conclusion summarized as follows:1、The quality changes of ready-to-eat sea cucumber during storage at 37℃. TPA texture analysis, TVB-N, determination of free amino acids, denaturation temperature and sensory evaluation are commonly used for evaluating quality changes. Degradation of collagen during storage is occurred during storage, as a result, the sensory quality become poor. Thermal denaturation temperature of the collagen is reduced collagen 5.3℃and 18℃after storing 10 days and 20 days. The content of TVB-N is 60.36 mg/100g with an increase of 54.49mg/100g. More degradation information is obtained by studying the degradation discipline during storage.2、The selecting of biological cross-linkers and studying of crosslinking mechanism. Fructus Chebulae extract and Gallnut extract is selected from 10 kinds of plants spices by TPA and protein degradation rate analysis. After treated by the two plant extracts, the denaturation temperature of collagen of sea cucumber increased by 4 ℃and 6.5 ℃, the moisture content decreased by 11% and 14%. Thermal stability of collagen fibers increases and water activity reduces, especially, bound water content is much lower than that of the control group.3、Fructus Chebulae extract and Gallnut extract is used to study the impact on the characteristics of gelatin gel.Different concentrations of Gallnut extract are also studied. Gelatin structure and thermal properties are studied by the measurement of gel strength, swelling kinetics, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), determination of the degree of cross-linking, FT-IR spectral analysis and X-ray diffraction studies. Gelatin gel strength and greatest degree of crosslink ing is obtained with the concentration of Fructus Chebulae extract at 360μg/g gelatin. Maximum degree of cross-linking of collagen treated by Fructus Chebulae extract and Gallnut extract gallnut are 76.9%and 78.3%. There is nothing effect on the triple helix structure of gelatin. Excessive crosslinking is induced when the content of Gallnut extract is more than appropriate concentration.