Abstract:In order to explore the effects of natural antioxidant emulsions on the preservation outcome of refrigerated fish balls, this research used casein as the emulsifier to build an oil-in-water emulsion system, and explored the effect of casein dosage and storage time on the stability of the emulsion. Emulsions with different natural antioxidants (carnosic acid, apple polyphenols, and grape seed polyphenols) were mixed with fish meat paste to prepare fish balls. The hardness, elasticity, gel strength, thiobarbituric acid value (TBA), total number of bacteria, and sensory score of fish balls were used as indicators to examine the effects of different antioxidant emulsions on the quality of fish balls during the storage at 4 ℃. It was found that after 14 days of storage, the particle size of the emulsion with 2% casein was 372.33 nm and the potential was 33.53 mV, indicating the best stability. The addition of a natural antioxidant emulsion could significantly improve the hardness, gel strength, TBA value, and total colony number of the fish balls during storage (P<0.05). In addition, the hardness, gel strength, and TBA value of the fish balls treated with the carnosic acid-casein emulsion were 511.79 g, 293.64 g, and 0.64 mg/kg, respectively, at the end of storage (which were significantly superior to those involving the apple polyphenols- and grape seed polyphenols-casein emulsions),, with the total number of bacteria being 4.95 lg CFU/g after 12 days of storage (which was still within the standard range). The research results showed that the carnosic acid-casein emulsion had the greatest preservative effect on the quality of fish balls during storage.
