Evaluation of Technological and Sensory Properties of Low-fat Burger Containing Madwort (Alyssum homolocarpum) Seed Gum as Fat Replacer

Conscious consumers today are looking for low-calorie and safe foods. Hamburger is a high-fat and high-calorie food, with a relatively high fat content (20-30%), and also one of the most popular meat products in the world. On the other hand, reducing the fat content of meat products reduces the sensory characteristics (color, juiciness, texture, flavor, and mouth feel) and technological (cooking loss, emulsion stability, water holding capacity, cooking yield, and rheological properties) characteristics of the product. Non-meat ingredients such as hydrocolloids are used as fat substitutes to improve the quality of low-fat products. Therefore, in this research, the effect of various Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum (AHSG) concentration (0.1, 0.5 and 0.9%) was investigated as a fat replacer on the technological and sensory properties of low-fat beef burgers and compared with the high-fat (10% fat) and low-fat (2% fat) control samples (without AHSG).

For this purpose, three burgers from each formulation were cooked and then cooled to room temperature at 25 °C. Moisture, fat, protein content and ash percentage of the burgers were determined according to Iranian National Standardization Organization (INSO) 2304 by hot air flow oven, Soxhlet extractor, Kjeldahl method and electric stove equipped with temperature and time control at 550 ˚C. Textural profile analysis parameters were measured by the texture analyzer; and lightness (L*), redness (a*) and yellowness (b*) values were determined by hunter lab system. All experiments were done in triplicate.

Increasing the concentration of Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum (AHSG) increased the cooking yield and moisture retention capacity in the samples. . The addition of AHSG, insignificantly affected the lightness (L*) and redness (a*) values of the samples. The lowest level of L* and b*, as well as the highest a* were observed in cooked samples containing 0.9% AHSG. The hardness, chewiness, cohesiveness, gumminess, and springiness reduced significantly with an increase in Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum concentration. The lowest hardness, cohesiveness, shrinkage and puncture force, as well as the highest cooking yield and moisture retention capacity were observed in samples containing 0.9% AHSG. According to the results of sensory analysis, increasing the concentration of gum did not show a significant effect on the sensory characteristics, while the highest total acceptance was observed in low fat burger containing 0.9% AHSG.

According to the obtained results, the sample containing 0.9% Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum improved the technological and sensory characteristics of low-fat treatments compared with control samples. Therefore, the possibility of using 0.9% AHSG for developing low fat burger formulation is confirmed.