Chewiness

Abstract: Citrus fruits constitute an underused source of fibre and antioxidants, particularly albedo, and the potential for its use is explored. Lemon albedo was prepared from pith following four different methods either cooking or/and drying and mincing. These ingredients were added at 0%, 2.5%, 5% and 7.5% levels to a beef burger mix and the burgers were evaluated for quality attributes including: compositional analysis, cooking characteristics, fat oxidation, pH, physical tests (included colour and texture profile analysis) and a range of sensory attributes using a ranking test. The type of albedo slightly influenced the lipid oxidation and pH of samples, while the cooking properties were significantly improved by some of the added treatment materials with average increments of 5.5–11% on treatment meat patties when compared with control samples. Instrumental colour testing showed some differences on lightness, yellowness and redness, while hardness, gumminess, springiness and chewiness were in general, consistently higher as albedo concentration increased. The dry ingredient also had a stronger effect. The sensory evaluation highlighted significant differences on redness and hardness. Samples were also ranked distinctly in relation to their overall acceptance where only treatments with raw albedo compared poorly to the rest of samples, which indicates potential to develop this material as a food ingredient. Industrial relevance Citrus fruits are mainly used for juice, oil and pectin production and are underutilized sources for dietary fibre and antioxidants. This work examined the effects of lemon albedo on chemical, physicochemical and sensory properties of beef burgers especially to improve cooking properties. Besides reduced cooking losses citrus fibre seems to have potential as alternative to conventional fillers in meat product.