Rosemary may protect flavour in processed chicken

The researchers say that adding 0.1 percent dried rosemary to chicken thighs or breasts prior to high pressure processing inhibits lipid oxidisation during cooking, helping to prevent off-flavours.


The researchers, from the State University of Campinas in Brazil and the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark, investigated the effect of a high pressure processing treatment and subsequent cooking (95 degrees Celsius) on the formation of lipid oxidation products of minced chicken thigh and breast meat with and without prior addition of rosemary at 0.1 per cent.


Electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy was used to quantify lipid oxidation in the minced chicken meat.


After 10 hours of storage, the researchers found that the level of lipid oxidation was significantly lower in the rosemary treated meats (55 percent less for thigh meat and 42 percent less for breast meat).


"Rosemary showed a clear antioxidative effect in pressure-processed samples after a subsequent heat treatment and rosemary was found both to inhibit the radical formation and the subsequent lipid peroxidation and oxygen consumption," reported the researchers.