Tastes like chicken?

By 29. August 2017Blog, Nutrition, Taste

Today we are talking about fortified food, chicken sausages to be precise.

We have reported a few times over the years about fortified foods, in general, the trick is how much the food can be fortified before consumers find the taste (or texture) unacceptable. This research is no different.

Published in the Journal Food & Function, the researchers wanted to add flaxseed (for the omega 3 fatty acids) and vitamin E to chicken sausages “at levels supporting health claims of protecting against oxidative stress.” They added 12mg/100g of Vitamin E and 2g/100g of flax seed oil. The oil was added in various forms: normal, emulsified, freeze dried encapsulated, freeze dried encapsulated with cross linker and spray dry encapsulated.

Both the fatty acids and the vitamin E were retained above the level supporting health claims. Interestingly neither the emulsification nor encapsulation treatments increased the amount retained.

In general, the addition of the flaxseed oil had a negative effect on the taste (except for the emulsified group) of the sausages.  Only the addition of encapsulated oil to the sausages led to a significant decrease in the acceptance of flavour to the consumers.

Click here to read more.