சுருக்கம்

The rabbit habit - sensory and physicochemical characteristics of rabbit meat sausages

Eugenia A Asamoah

 The increase in knowledge and awareness of the link between diet and health of consumers has resulted in heightened demand for highly nutritive foods of acceptable quality. Rabbit meat m(RM) is lean and rich in protein of high biological value, yet with limited processed products. mThis study was aimed at processing rabbit meat into frankfurter-type sausages to help diversify its use and improve its economic value. The sausages were made with RM and substitutions mof Refined Palm Stearin (RPS) at 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% respectively. Beef and lard were mused to produce sausages to serve as control. Moisture, ash, fat, protein and mineral contents m(Ca, Na and Fe) as well as pH and percentage cooking loss of the sausages were determined. Sensory evaluation of the products revealed that, the control sausages had significantly higher Prepared by Eugenia Asamoah overall acceptability (p<0.05) compared to the RM sausages. However, no significant differences (p>0.05) were observed among the 4 formulations of RM:RPS sausages in terms of overall acceptability. There were significant differences (p<0.05) in the moisture, protein and fat contents between the control sausages (50.70%, 25.22% and 21.90%, respectively), the 100:0 (62.52%, 28.69% and 5.68% respectively), 90:10 (63.15%, 23.73% and 8.77%, respectively), 80:20 (60.52%, 22.47% and 12.54% respectively) and 70:30 (57.17%, 21.13% and 16.79% respectively). RM sausages produced with RPS had acceptable sensory attributes, higher protein and lower fat contents than sausages produced with beef and lard. Rabbit meat therefore serves as a great potential as an alternative and healthier source of meat for consumption, to meet the growing human protein demand.