Evaluation of NaCl and KCl Salting Effects on Technological Properties of Pre- and Post-Rigor Chicken Breasts at Various Ionic Strengths

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of NaCl and KCl salting on technological properties of pre- and post-rigor chicken breasts at various ionic strengths. The following factorial arrangement was used: 2 salt types (NaCl and KCl) × 2 rigor statuses (pre- and post-rigor) × 4 ionic strengths (0.086, 0.171, 0.257, and 0.342). Hot-boned and ground chicken breasts were salted within 30 min postmortem after slaughter (pre-rigor salting) or 24 h postmortem (post-rigor salting) with varying concentrations of NaCl (0.50%, 1.00%, 1.50%, and 2.00%) or KCl (0.64%, 1.28%, 1.91%, and 2.55%) corresponding to the four ionic strengths. KCl caused higher pH value in salted chicken breasts than NaCl (p < 0.05). However, KCl decreased total and myofibrillar protein solubilities in post-rigor salted chicken breasts compared to NaCl (p < 0.05), but those were similar to pre-rigor chicken breasts, regardless of the salt type (p > 0.05). Different salt types had no significant impact on cooking loss and textural properties. This study shows that NaCl and KCl had similar effects on technological properties at the same ionic strength (within 0.342), but the use of KCl may have the possibility to decrease protein solubility, depending on rigor status of raw meat at the different salting time.

Sous-vide cooking as a practical strategy to improve quality attributes and shelf stability of reduced-salt chicken breast ham

“…Under both reducing and non-reducing conditions, all treatments presented similar band patterns and intensity of myofibrillar muscle proteins, including probably myosin heavy chain, α-actinin, desmin, actin, and myosin light chains. As a similar result, Song et al (2020b) reported that different ionic NaCl concentrations (0.5%–2.0%) had no impact on the profile of extractable myofibrillar proteins from salted chicken breasts. Moreover, Bhat et al (2020) found that sous-vide cooking at 60°C for 4.5 h and 10 h did not change the myofibrillar protein profile of beef muscle and suggested that sous-vide cooking at the applied heating condition could improve the texture of beef muscle without a change in myofibrillar protein profile.…”

“…In the development of low-salt meat products, the improvement of water-holding capacity is the most critical strategy because the decline of water-holding capacity could negatively impact cooking yield, texture, and sensory acceptance ( Inguglia et al, 2017 ). To improve the water-holding capacity of low-salt meat products, thus, consumer-friendly processing techniques known to be harmless, such as high pressure, ultrasound, and hot-processing, have been multiply considered in the meat processing industry ( Inguglia et al, 2017 ; Song et al, 2020b ). In addition, our result indicates that sous-vide cooking could be a promising technique for improving the water-holding capacity of low-salt meat products.…”

A research note: Effect of Hofmeister salts on meat iridescence in cooked pork

“…In contrast, KCl consists of a chaotropic cation and chaotropic anion and therefore affect the protein structures in a different manner. For example, Song et al (2020) showed that KCl was less effective in solubilizing total and MPs but the differences in protein solubilities between NaCl and KCl had no impact on cooking loss, as we also noted in our study. With less solubilized myofibrillar protein, incoherent light scattering could be stronger and suppress coherent scattering (multilayer interference).…”

“…This is accordance with results from Hand et al (1982) who noted that replacement of NaCl with KCl at equivalent ionic strengths increased the pH value whereas a replacement with LiCl decreased the pH value in cured pork ham. The pH changes can be attributed to differences in binding abilities of ions to different protein groups (Puolanne and Halonen, 2010; Song et al, 2020). Correlations showed that higher iridescence scores were associated with higher water contents (r = 0.524, p < 0.05), lower cooking losses (r = −0,496, p < 0.05) and higher pH values (r S = 0.475, p < 0.05).…”