Improving oxidative stability of omega-3 enriched pork meat by addition of food grade sugars and sensory characterization of cooked and re-warmed pork meat patties by free choice profiling

Meat patties (15% fat) were made using pork trim obtained from pigs fed a control diet or a diet containing 10% flax for 6 weeks, with vitamin E added at either 40 mg/kg feed (control) or 400 mg/kg feed in a 2x2 factorial design. Food grade sugars sucrose, glucose, xylose or no sugar (control) were added at a 2% level to ground pork in a split plot design. Dietary flax supplementation increased n-3 fatty acid concentrations and reduced n-6: n-3 ratio. Addition of sugars (glucose and sucrose) improved the oxidative stability of all meat patties over refrigerated storage and provided oxidative stability to only the high vitamin E/No flax treatment after cooking as measured by thiobarbituric acid reactive substances assay. Sensory study using free choice profiling approach conducted on pork meat patties showed that addition of sugars produced distinct sensory characteristics irrespective of the source grind fatty acid or tocopherol composition.