foods Article The Possibility of Reduction of Synthetic Preservative E 250 in Canned Pork Karolina Ferysiuk and Karolina M. Wójciak * Department of Animal Raw Materials Technology, Faculty of Food Science and Biotechnology, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Skromna 8 Street, 20-704 Lublin, Poland;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +48-81-4623340 Received: 12 November 2020; Accepted: 10 December 2020; Published: 15 December 2020 Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the possibility of reducing the amount of NaNO2 added to canned pork during 180 days of storage. In this study, three variants of canned pork were prepared by adding different amounts of sodium nitrite: N (100 mg/kg), NH (50 mg/kg), and NF (no nitrite). The antioxidant capacity, amount of secondary products of lipid oxidation, color intensity, and pH were analyzed after one, 60, 90, and 180 days of storage where sensory properties, water activity (aw), selected pathogenic bacteria, nitrate and nitrite residues, N-nitrosamines (NA), and cholesterol were analyzed after 1 and 180 days of storage. The redness parameter of the nitrite-free canned meat was found to be significantly lower (about 6.4) than that of the products containing sodium nitrite (N: 10.49 and NH: 9.89). During the storage period C. perfringens, L. monocytogenes, and Salmonella were detected in the products. It is not possible to completely eliminate nitrite from the canned pork production process without deteriorating the color, antioxidant properties, sensory characteristics, and health safety. However, the level of hazard chemicals such as NA, nitrate and nitrite residues can be limited by decreasing the amount of nitrite addition to 50 mg/kg.