Reduced and Low Fat Meat Products

Fat plays a key role in the manufacturing of processed meat products with desired quality characteristics. However, due to the recent concern over the negative health implications of high fat meat products, by various health organizations (WHO/FAO/NHLBI); consumers are very much conscious about their nutrition and health and choose low fat meat products as these are perceived at least by many to be “better for you” than traditional counterparts that contain higher levels of animal fat. Reduction of fat in processed meat products is extremely challenging and poses difficulties in terms of appearance, flavour and texture besides health-conscious consumers continue to look for ways to improve nutritional habits without sacrificing psychological satisfaction. For this reason, a number of substances (such as carbohydrate, protein and lipid based) with high water binding capacity, able to promote the texture, mouth feel and form gels have been examined for their ability to replace fat and are called fat replacers. Fat replacers are substances which structurally may be considered fats, proteins or carbohydrates, that is, designed to replace all or part of the fat in a product, with minimum impact on the organoleptic quality of the food product, yielding fewer calories than fat. This chapter is aimed to summarize the recent approaches for the development of low-fat/reduced-fat processed meat products.