Effects of different phosphorus‐free water‐retaining agents on the quality of frozen tilapia fillets

Abstract

Tilapia is an economically important fish worldwide, but its quality is affected by storage practices. To improve the quality of tilapia fillets during frozen storage, we examined the effect of pretreatment with various combinations of different concentrations of trehalose, potassium bicarbonate, and chitosan. Following pretreatment, we analyzed the tilapia fillets using quality indicators, including soaking weight gain, coating weight gain, water‐holding capacity, thawing loss, pH, Ca2+‐ATPase activity, and texture characteristics. Water distribution was analyzed using low‐field nuclear magnetic resonance and the optimal combination of water‐retaining agents was obtained using an L8(27) orthogonal experiment. The results showed that trehalose, potassium bicarbonate, and chitosan improved fillet quality at pretreatment concentrations of 5%–8%, 1.0%, and 0.5%, respectively. The optimal combination was 4% trehalose plus 1.2% potassium bicarbonate plus 0.2% chitosan. The Ca2+‐ATPase activity and mastication property of the frozen fillets that were pretreated with the optimized formulation were 1.39 μmol Pi/mg protein·h and 8.55 mJ, respectively, which were 43.3% and 80.0% greater, respectively, than that of the control group. Using a suitable concentration and combination of water‐retaining agents cannot only lock‐in the internal water content of frozen tilapia fillets but also improve their quality during frozen storage. These results can inform practical storage practices of similar aquatic products.

Advances and applications in water retention technology for meat and meat products: Status and future research directions

“…The non-phosphorus water retention agent has many benefits, including diverse varieties, excellent safety, high efficiency, and degradability. It can be one of the substances such as sugar, amino acids, proteins, and non-phosphorus salts, or it can be the same as phosphate, which can be formed by a variety of substances through the compounding of complementary effect of compound non-phosphorus water retention agent (Li et al, 2022c). (Peng et al, 2023) discovered that the hydrolysis product of whey protein had inhibitory effects on the degradation of meat MP.…”

“…(Zhu et al ., 2023a) found that water‐soluble citrus fibres could enhance polysaccharide–protein interactions or protein–protein interactions to form a relatively tight mesh structure, thereby improving the gel strength and water retention capacity of lamb MP gels. (Li et al ., 2022c) studied the water retention and quality of tilapia and found that a mixture of 4% alginate, 1.2% KHCO 3 , and 0.2% chitosan gave the best results. Additionally, it has been shown that compounds with comparable properties but varying molecular weights exhibit variations in their capacity to maintain moisture in meat.…”

Sugar-Based Water Retention Agents in Meat Products: Enhancing Water-Holding Capacity and Promoting Health Benefits

“…4: (I) The majority of SWRAs include hydroxyl and carbonyl groups, and some also contain amino, imino, acyl, and other hydrophilic groups. These hydrophilic groups can form hydrogen bonds with water molecules, which support the excellent WHC of SWRA; (II) On the surface of meat products, polysaccharides combine with calcium or magnesium ions to form a protective film, which protects the original spatial structure of actomyosin and stabilizes the moisture inside the meat [57]; (III) Polysaccharides of different molecular weight can penetrate into meat products muscle by capillary force and other actions, and interact with proteins to expand the space between muscle fibers [2], for example, with a positive charge group of polysaccharides, such as CS can combine with proteins to increase the space between myofibril, myofibrils and lessen water-soluble protein loss [25]; (IV) They could create a strong three-dimensional network with calcium/magnesium chelating to capture the water [58];…”

“…P. Chantarasataporn et al [93] Drip loss, thiobarbituric acid reactant, aerobic plate number, pH value and total volatile basic nitrogen are lower. Furthermore, Li et al [25] studied the synergistic effect of different concentrations of TR, potassium bicarbonate and CS on the WHC of tilapia fillets, and studied the tilapia fillets after frozen storage for 3 months. With the increase of TR concentration, the thawing loss rate decreased significantly from 9.18% to 6.60% and KHCO3 1.0% increased the weight of fish fillets by 3.41%.…”

“…Phosphorus-free WRAs mainly include sugars, proteins and phosphorus-free salts [25,26]. Using phosphate-free WRA can solve the major problems of import and export trade frustration caused by excessive phosphate addition, such as product quality decline and cost increase, that are currently facing the meat processing and food production industry.…”