Impact of salt reduction on biogenic amines, fatty acids, microbiota, texture and sensory profile in traditional blood dry-cured sausages

Meat industry needs to reduce salt in their products due to health issues. The present study evaluated the effect of salt reduction from 6% to 3% in two Portuguese traditional blood dry-cured sausages. Physicochemical and microbiological parameters, biogenic amines, fatty acids and texture profiles and sensory panel evaluations were considered. Differences due to salt reduction were perceptible in a faint decline of water activity, which slightly favoured microbial growth. Total biogenic amines content ranged from 88.86 to 796.68 mg kg 1 fresh matter, with higher amounts, particularly of cadaverine, histamine and tyramine, in low-salt products. Still, histamine and other vasoactive amines remained at low levels, thus not affecting consumers’ health. Regarding fatty acids, no significant differences were observed due to salt. However, texture profile analysis revealed lower resilience and cohesiveness in low-salt products, although no textural changes were observed by the sensory panel. Nevertheless, low-salt sausages were clearly preferred by panellists.

Processamento de imagem digital para o controlo de qualidade do queijo regional de Évora

A utilização generalizada do computador para a automatização das mais diversas tarefas, tem conduzido ao desenvolvimento de aplicações que possibilitam a realização de actividades que até então poderiam não só ser demoradas, como estar sujeitas a erros inerentes à actividade humana. A investigação desenvolvida no âmbito desta tese, tem como objectivo o desenvolvimento de um software e algoritmos que permitam a avaliação e classificação de queijos produzidos na região de Évora, através do processamento de imagens digitais. No decurso desta investigação, foram desenvolvidos algoritmos e metodologias que permitem a identificação dos olhos e dimensões do queijo, a presença de textura na parte exterior do queijo, assim como características relativas à cor do mesmo, permitindo que com base nestes parâmetros possa ser efectuada uma classificação e avaliação do queijo. A aplicação de software, resultou num produto de simples utilização. As fotografias devem respeitar algumas regras simples, sobre as quais se efectuará o processamento e classificação do queijo. ABSTRACT: The widespread use of computers for the automation of repetitive tasks, has resulted in developing applications that allow a range of activities, that until now could not only be time consuming and also subject to errors inherent to human activity, to be performed without or with little human intervention. The research carried out within this thesis, aims to develop a software application and algorithms that enable the assessment and classification of cheeses produced in the region of Évora, by digital images processing. Throughout this research, algorithms and methodologies have been developed that allow the identification of the cheese eyes, the dimensions of the cheese, the presence of texture on the outside of cheese, as well as an analysis of the color, so that, based on these parameters, a classification and evaluation of the cheese can be conducted. The developed software application, is product simple to use, requiring no special computer knowledge. Requires only the acquisition of the photographs following a simple set of rules, based on which it will do the processing and classification of cheese.