Sodium Reduction in Traditional Dry-Cured Pork Belly Using Glasswort Powder (Salicornia herbacea) as a Partial NaCl Replacer

Iasmin Ferreira; Ana Leite; Lia Vasconcelos; Sandra Rodrigues; Javier Mateo; Paulo E S Munekata; Alfredo Teixeira

doi:10.3390/foods11233816

Sodium Reduction in Traditional Dry-Cured Pork Belly Using Glasswort Powder (Salicornia herbacea) as a Partial NaCl Replacer

Foods. 2022 Nov 26;11(23):3816. doi: 10.3390/foods11233816.

Authors

Iasmin Ferreira^{1

2

3}, Ana Leite^{1

2}, Lia Vasconcelos^{1

2}, Sandra Rodrigues^{1

2

4}, Javier Mateo⁵, Paulo E S Munekata⁵, Alfredo Teixeira^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Centro de Investigação de Montanha (CIMO), Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal.
² Laboratório Para a Sustentabilidade e Tecnologia em Regiões de Montanha, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal.
³ Departamento de Higiene y Tecnología de Los Alimentos, Facultad de Veterinaria, Campus Vegazana S/N, 24007 León, Spain.
⁴ Escola Superior Agrária, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia, 5300-253 Bragança, Portugal.
⁵ Centro Tecnológico de La Carne de Galicia, Rúa Galicia N 4, Parque Tecnológico de Galicia, San Cibrao Das Viñas, 32900 Ourense, Spain.

Abstract

Sodium chloride (NaCl) is a key ingredient in the processing of traditional dry-cured meat products by improving microbial safety, sensory attributes and technological properties. However, increasing concern about the consumption of sodium and health has been supporting the development of low-sodium meat products. Several strategies to reduce sodium in dry-cured meat product have been tested, although the followed approaches sometimes result in undesirable characteristics concerning flavor, texture and mouthfeel. The use of halophytic plants such as glasswort (Salicornia herbacea) in food matrices has been suggested as a novel strategy to reduce sodium content, due its salty flavor. The main aim of the present study is to produce traditional dry-cured pork bellies from the Bísaro breed using glasswort as a NaCl partial replacer, and compare it with dry-cured bellies salted either with NaCl or a mix of NaCl + KCl. Control bellies (BC) were salted with 100% of NaCl, the second formulation (BK) had 50% of NaCl and 50% of KCl, and the third formulation (BG) had 90% of NaCl and 10% of glasswort powder (GP). After production, the bellies were evaluated for a_w, pH, CIELab coordinates, weight loss, proximal composition, TBARS, collagen and chloride contents, fatty acid profile and sensory attributes. The use of BG in dry-cured pork bellies did not affect processing indicators such as weight loss, a_w and pH. Concerning CIELab, only the coordinates L* and hue angle from the external surface color of BG were statistically different from BC and BK. As expected, ash and NaCl contents differed from BG to the other two formulations. SFA and indexes AI and TI were lower, whereas the MUFA and h/H ratio were higher in BG than other treatments, leading to a product with a healthier lipid profile. The sensory evaluation revealed differences in appearance, taste and flavor among treatments, but did not indicate any negative effects of BG in the product attributes. This study reinforces the potential of BG as a natural sodium reducer for the production of traditional dry-cured pork bellies.

Keywords: color; dry-cured pork belly; fatty acid profile; glasswort; halophytes; sensory profile; sodium reduction.

Grants and funding

The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020 and UIDP/00690/2020) and SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2021). Grants of I.F., A.L. and L.V. are due to NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-072234. P.E.S.M. acknowledges postdoctoral fellowship support from the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIN, Spain) “Juan de la Cierva” program (IJC2020-043358-I).