Cocoa Coproducts-Based and Walnut Oil Gelled Emulsion as Animal Fat Replacer and Healthy Bioactive Source in Beef Burgers

Abstract

The aim of this work was to evaluate the effects on the chemical, physic-chemical, technological, and sensory properties of beef burger when replacing different quantities of fat (50 and 100%) with different levels of oil-in-water-gelled emulsion elaborated with walnut oil and cocoa bean shell flour (GECW). The chemical composition of the samples was affected by the fat replacement. The reformulation increased the moisture and ash content while the fat and protein content decreased with respect to the control sample. The linolenic and linolenic acid content of the beef burgers increased as the GECW replacement was augmented. The polyunsaturated fatty/saturated fatty acid ratio increased in both raw and cooked burgers, whereas the atherogenicity index and thrombogenicity index were reduced in both raw and cooked burgers with respect to the control sample. The use of GECW as a fat replacer was found to be effective in improving the cooking loss. Similarly, there were positive effects on reductions in the diameter and the increases in the thickness of the beef burgers. Regarding lipid stability, in both the raw and cooked burgers, the reformulation increased the 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARs) values with respect to the control sample. In both types of reformulated burgers, three bound polyphenols (mainly catechin and epicatechin) and two free polyphenols were identified, as were methylxanthines theobromine and caffeine. The sensory properties for the control and partial pork backfat replacement treatments were similar, while the sample with the total pork backfat replacement treatment showed the lowest scores. The blend of cocoa bean shell flour and walnut oil could be used as new ingredients for the development of beef burgers with a healthier nutritional profile without demeriting their sensory or cooking characteristics and physic-chemical properties.

Use of Healthy Emulsion Hydrogels to Improve the Quality of Pork Burgers

“…These results reflected the low oil proportion used in the hydrogels (37.2%). Concerning fat reduction, the present study accords with other studies in which animal fats were totally or partially replaced with various healthy oils, such as walnut oil [ 28 ], tiger nut oil [ 5 , 40 ], avocado or pumpkin seed oils with algal oil [ 7 ], chia, tiger nut and linseed oils [ 11 , 21 ], canola oil [ 9 , 29 , 65 ], olive oil [ 63 ], algal oil [ 12 ] and a mixture of wheat germ and algal oils [ 23 ].…”

“…Overall, the T2 sample still has the highest PUFA content compared to the control group. These results are consistent with the literature, in which several other authors reported that the reformulation of meat products with vegetable and/or marine oil hydrogels causes a significant increase in unsaturated fatty acid contents [5,7,23,28,29,70,71]. As mentioned before, marine oils contain high amounts of n-3 fatty acids [12] and the results obtained in the present study can confirm this.…”

“…Lastly, hypocholesterolemic/hypercholesterolemic (h/H) indices were calculated and both treatments showed an increase, in line with the recommendations. All these results agree with those obtained by other authors who mentioned that burgers made with either partial or total animal fat replacement by hydrogel emulsions had better health indices in comparison with burgers manufactured with animal fat [7,11,21,23,28].…”

“…The chemical analysis did not report significant differences in protein content between control and modified samples, as in other similar studies [ 11 , 29 , 63 ]. In contrast, other researchers [ 5 , 7 , 12 , 28 ] observed a decrease in protein content, since animal back fat consists of about 10% protein [ 11 ]. On the other hand, these products can be called “a source of protein” according to Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 [ 64 ] since at least 20% of the energy value of the product is contributed by proteins.…”

“…The substitution of animal fat with vegetable and/or marine oils to make healthier meat products has appeared as one of the most promising means of improving the nutritional quality of meat products [ 9 , 21 , 23 , 27 ]. Several studies can show that this approach is useful to increase monounsaturated (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and reduce SFA contents [ 5 , 7 , 9 , 10 , 12 , 21 , 23 , 28 , 29 ]. On the other hand, using n-3 PUFA-rich oils allows for a reduction in the n-6/n-3 ratio in modified products and to claim that a product is a source “a source of omega-3” [ 30 ].…”