SENSORY EVALUATION OF PATTIES WITH INULIN AS FAT REPLACEMENT BY SURFACE RESPONSE METHODOLOGY

Abstract

Meat products with reduced fat content are a tendency in food industry, and regarding that, fat replacements have been utilized. The suggestion using them is the manufacturing of re- duced fat products that can be considered healthy and prefera- ble maintaining original sensory characteristics. The intent of this work is elaborate beef hamburger patties utilizing inulin as fat replacement, containing prebiotic functions. For that nine formulations were developed, which three were classified as base-formulations, varying the inulin and fat content. The products were characterized by physicochemical analysis (moisture, protein, lipid, ashes and total fibers), cooking shrinkage and sensory regarding acceptability for overall im- pression, appearance, flavor, odor, texture and after flavor. Through response surface methodology applied to sensory data, the attributes flavor, odor, appearance and after flavor were the ones that obtained better fit to the data and were utilized to predict the better proportion of fat and inulin. The results obtained demonstrated that the 6% inulin formulation obtained the better acceptability compared to traditional patty Formulations containing more than 6% inulin presented low acceptability, due to the low content of meat, negatively influencing the final product texture and flavor.