Quality of Functional Chicken Nuggets Enriched with Flaxseed Flour

Abstract

The present study was taken up to improve the quality of chicken nuggets as functional food using flaxseed flour. The study consists of control – C and treatment groups - T _1, T _2, and T ₃ containing 1, 2 and 3 percent flaxseed flour respectively. The treatment groups showed significantly higher moisture, fat, fibre and ash content when compared to control. The pH and TBARS value was lower in treatment group whereas cooking yield and emulsion stability were higher. On fatty acid profiling, linolenic acid and polyunsaturated fatty acid such as eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid in treatment groups were higher when compared to control group. The ultrastructure study reveals that treatment groups showed increased fat globules size and stable protein matrix. The sensory evaluation reports of T₂ group was preferred and had significant higher sensory attributes. The microbiology study showed lower total viable count and psychrophilic count in treatment group and coliforms were absent. The study promotes the functionality of chicken nuggets incorporated with flaxseed flour which showed higher fibre, PUFA, emulsion stability, antioxidant and antimicrobial effect with good sensory acceptability.