Kaewkot Chonlathee, Cheng Wen-Ling, Tan Fa-Jui
Department of Animal Science, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
Anim Sci J. 2023 Jan-Dec;94(1):e13836. doi: 10.1111/asj.13836.
Being able to thaw frozen meat in a reasonable time without impairing quality is crucial for industry and households. Radio frequency (RF) techniques have been used to defrost frozen foods. The influences of RF (50 kW, 27.12 MHz) tempering combined with water immersion (WI, 20°C) thawing (RFWI) or air convection (AC, 20°C) thawing (RFAC) on the physicochemical and structural changes of chicken breast meat were investigated, and the results were compared with those of the fresh meat (FM) and the meat samples subjected to WI and AC only. The thawing processes were terminated when the core temperatures of the samples reached 4°C. The results indicated that AC was the most time-consuming technique, whereas RFWI required the least amount of time. The moisture losses, contents of the thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance, total volatile basic nitrogen, and total viable counts of the meat subjected to AC were higher. Relatively less changes in water-holding capacity, coloration, oxidation, microstructure, protein solubility, and high sensorial acceptance were observed for RFWI and RFAC. This study demonstrated that the meat thawed using RFWI and RFAC was of satisfactory quality. Therefore, the RF techniques can be effective alternatives to the time-consuming conventional thawing methods and benefit the meat industry.
能够在不影响质量的情况下在合理时间内解冻冷冻肉对工业和家庭来说至关重要。射频（RF）技术已被用于解冻冷冻食品。研究了射频（50 kW，27.12 MHz）回火结合水浸（WI，20°C）解冻（RFWI）或空气对流（AC，20°C）解冻（RFAC）对鸡胸肉理化和结构变化的影响，并将结果与新鲜肉（FM）以及仅进行水浸和空气对流处理的肉样进行比较。当样品的核心温度达到4°C时，解冻过程终止。结果表明，空气对流解冻是最耗时的技术，而射频水浸解冻所需时间最少。空气对流解冻的肉的水分损失、硫代巴比妥酸反应性物质含量、总挥发性盐基氮含量和总活菌数较高。射频水浸解冻和射频空气对流解冻的肉在持水性、色泽、氧化、微观结构、蛋白质溶解度和感官接受度方面相对变化较小。本研究表明，使用射频水浸解冻和射频空气对流解冻的肉质量令人满意。因此，射频技术可以成为耗时的传统解冻方法的有效替代方法，并造福肉类行业。
