Determining the physicochemical and sensory properties of low-fat burgers with rice bran and walnuts

Abstract The increasing demand for low-fat diets has led the food industry to develop or modify traditional food products to contain less animal fat, so in this study, the effect of different levels of rice bran and walnut as a fat replacer on physicochemical, color index, textural and sensory properties of low fat hamburgers (30%) were compared with high fat control samples. Control with 20% fat (treatment 1), and low fat hamburgers with %10 fat and % 2 rice bran (treatment 2), 3.5% rice bran (treatment 3), 5% rice bran (treatment 4), 2% rice bran + 2.5% walnut (treatment 5), 3.5% rice bran +2.5% walnut (treatment 6), 5% rice bran +2.5% walnut (treatment 7) and 2.5% walnut (treatment 8) were produced. The results of physicochemical analyses showed that, using rice bran and walnut could reduce fat and cooking less and increase the moisture content of hamburger. All in all rice bran had better effect than walnut. According to the color index, textural properties, the better results were observed in treatment 3, and in some assays were observed in treatment 2. Sensory evaluations indicated that hamburger containing rice bran (2-3.5%) had improved texture, flavor and overall acceptability, the best sensory score was observed in treatment 2 (% 2 rice bran). So, this study indicated that rice bran (2%) may be a good fat replacer in low fat hamburger.