Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - Department of Food Hygiene and Control

The main objective of the current study was to replace the traditional coat of pastirma with biodegradable edible coatings to overcome the problems e.g. cracked coat, detached coat, naked areas and mold growth that usually arise from the traditional coat and to improve the quality of processed pastirma during chilled storage. To achieve this objective, pastirma was processed and coated with traditional and different edible coating materials (chitosan, alginate, gelatin, starch, and composite). The coated pastirma was stored for 4 weeks at 5 {u00B0}C and analyzed weekly for physiochemical characteristics, microbiological, and sensory quality. The obtained results revealed that chitosan edible coating resulted in higher sensory scores, improved water barrier properties, pronounced antioxidant effect with lower shear force and noticeable reduction in microbial load (aerobic mesophilic, psychrotrophic, anaerobic, yeast and mold counts). Lower TBARS values, delayed respiration rate, reduction of weight loss, and improvement in all sensory attributes especially the color of pastirma were observed after gelatin and alginate application when compared with the traditional coating. Moreover, the addition of the lipid portion (beeswax) to starch during the preparation of coating material (composite) could improve the coating properties and overcome the problems that can arise from using starch alone. The use of starch composite resulted in a higher coating retention, a lower weight loss, improved sensory attributes, more stabilized color and a pronounced reduction of the total bacterial count (by 2 log CFU/g). It can be concluded that biodegradable edible coating materials especially chitosan and starch/beeswax composite can be used as an effective replacement to traditional coat for improving the quality of pastirma

Issued also as CD