Yuling Yang^1,, Yuan You¹, Xiaobei Peng¹, Yinji Chen¹, Yun Ma¹

This study was designed to investigate the effect of rice–based fat substitute (FS) on heat-induced gelation of myofibrillar proteins (MP) from chicken breast muscle. The secondary structure, calorimetric and rheological attributes (α-helix, β-sheet, heat flow and G’) of FS and MP mixtures were measured during gel formation. The results indicated that the addition of FS led to easier denaturation of myosin but delayed denaturation of actin. The α-helix content in the MP-FS mixture was lower than that of MP, whilst β-sheet content in the MP-FS mixture was higher than that of MP when heating temperature was higher than 60 °C, indicating that the addition of FS could promoted MP molecules unfolding and aggregating at higher temperature. The G’ value of the MP-FS mixture was higher than that of MP during heating. The initial gelling temperatures of the MP sample and the MP-FS sample were 42 °C according to G’ curves. The hardness value of the MP-FS gel was higher than that of the MP gel at temperature over 60 °C, and reached the maximum value at . Scanning electron microscopy showed that FS changed the microstructure of MP gel. It was concluded that the addition of FS promoted MP molecule unfolding, aggregating and gelling at heating temperature over 60 °C, but FS did not change the initial gelling temperature of MP molecules and the optimal gel-forming temperature.

myofibrillar proteins, fat substitute, gelation, gel properties