Preparation and storage stability of dried salted mutton

Minced (8 or 18 mm plate) mutton with salt (25%) and sorbate (0·4%) was pressed into cakes about 11 cm in diameter and 3 cm high. The cakes were partially dried in an air oven at 40°C for 48 h to a water activity of about 0·75. The cakes were packed, either in vacuo or in air, and stored at 30 or 2°C for up to 60 days. Objective assessment of quality showed that these dried salted meats can be kept for up to 60 days at 30°C with little loss of textural or nutritional quality although some fading, due to haemoprotein breakdown, occurs. Packaging in vacuum, however, minimises this loss of colour and would be recommended for centralised manufacture prior to distribution in developing, tropical countries.     

Catalysts of lipid oxidation in meat products

In emulsions consisting of refined lard, egg white and corn starch haemoglobin, initially a mixture of the oxy and met forms, at levels similar to the haemoprotein contents found in fresh meat, was a far more powerful catalyst of lipid oxidation, as measured by TBA number, than inorganic iron compounds at levels appropriate to those found in meat. This was true over the pH range 4·5 to 7·5. When added and evenly distributed to exhaustively washed muscle fibres (WF), at levels appropriate to those found in meat, haemoglobin was again a powerful catalyst, but all forms of inorganic iron appeared to have little prooxidant activity. The rate of oxidation of the lipid was very dependent on the haemoprotein concentration, being maximal in the range 10(-4) to 10(-5) M. This equates to an approximate unsaturated lipid to haem molar ratio of several hundred to one, similar to the values reported for model linoleate haem systems. In heated systems the haemoprotein again appeared to be a more effective catalyst than inorganic iron at levels appropriate to those found in meat. It is concluded that the conflicting results as to the roles of haem pigments and inorganic iron in lipid oxidation found in the literature are due, at least in part, to the difficulty of evenly dispersing the catalysts in the washed fibres, especially if heat or freezing leads to subsequent phase separation, and that H(2)O(2), formed by autoxidation of the oxypigments, may be necessary for ferric haem pigments to be effective catalysts.     

Thin-film ferroelectrics of PZT of sol-gel processing

The ferroelectric effect has been demonstrated for sol-gel derived lead zirconate titanate (PZT) (53/47) thin films. The respective values of coercive field and remanent polarization were 4x10(6) V/m and 0.36 C/m(2). The thin-film fabrication process is simple and compatible with Si planar technology, and offers a wide variety of potential uses for counting, memory, and integrated optical circuit applications.