Optimally designed functional foods are considered the most important part of a balanced and healthy diet. Goat meat nuggets, an otherwise healthy option, are packed with undesirable saturated and unsaturated fats. The present work suggests an optimal functional formulation to reduce the surplus fat content of goat meat nuggets by adding two optimally calculated functional ingredients, namely, fenugreek leaves (FL) and psyllium husk (PH). Response surface optimization was performed to determine the optimal content of the functional ingredients (FL and PH), resulting in minimum fat content without affecting the overall acceptability (OA) and other properties representing the taste and texture (e.g., ash content, pH, crude fiber content, and moisture content) of the nuggets. Functional additives at optimum levels successfully reduced the fat content of the weight-conserved nuggets by almost 39% compared with the control nuggets. Minimal and acceptable effects were observed regarding OA and other properties representative of the taste and texture of the nuggets. An optimally designed, fat-attenuated goat meat nugget formulation is therefore prescribed, which complies with the nutritional standards of a balanced diet.
Meat and meat products are important foods with essential nutritional components such as essential amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins and
minerals that form a significant component for the normal physiological and biochemical processes. However, the main drawback of meat
and meat products is the absence of dietary fibre and the presence of saturated fat. Value improvement can be done by the incorporation of
functional ingredients into the meat products. The use of functional ingredients in meat products offers processors the opportunity to
enhance the functional and nutritional value of their products. Vegetable proteins, dietary fibre, cereal by-products, fruits, legumes, spices,
herbs, and lactic acid bacteria that have been used alone or in combination for the enhancement of the functional value of meat and meat
products were studied. Hence, the current review focuses on the functional ingredients incorporated in meat products
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