Applications of Trisodium Phosphate in Meat Products

Trisodium phosphate can be divided into industrial grade and food grade. As food additive, food grade tsp can be used in various types of foods. Meat products are the important foods that people rely on for nutrients. As the most common used ingredient in meat foods, different types of phosphates have different properties.

Differences Between The Several Common Used Phosphates

Adding phosphates to meat products can improve the water holding capacity of meat products. Of course, the phosphates that are often used by people are trisodium phosphate, hexametaphosphate, and pyrophosphate. Different phosphate monomers have different water holding capacity for meat products. The main purpose of using phosphate in meat products is to improve the water-holding capacity of the meat, so that the meat can still retain its moisture during processing, reduce the loss of nutrients, and also maintain the tenderness of the meat and increase the yield. Addition of polyphosphates to meat products also has functions such as adjusting pH, emulsifying, buffering, chelating metal ions, and so on.

Different Functions of Phosphates

The functions of various phosphate monomers are also different. In terms of the function of chelating metal ions, sodium hexametaphosphate has a strong ability to chelate Ca2 + and has a strong softening effect on water. However, the ability to chelate Fe2 + is poor, so the color protection effect is not as good as sodium pyrophosphate and sodium tripolyphosphate; In terms of the effect of different phosphates on the pH value of meat products, trisodium phosphate has the strongest regulating ability, and the PH value of its aqueous solution is up to about 12, which can greatly improve the water holding capacity of meat products. In the research on the water holding capacity of meat products, some people compared the cooked sausage with phosphates with the sausage without phosphate as a comparative test. By analyzing the raw materials of different pH values, it was found that by adding 0.25% phosphate, the holding capacity of meat products can be significantly improved. When comparing different polyphosphate monomers, trisodium phosphate has the highest water holding capacity of meat products, which is between 10% to 20%, and sodium hexametaphosphate is between 5% to 15%. When phosphate and pectin were injected into chicken breasts at a certain ratio, it was found that after adding a certain amount of pectin, the water holding capacity and softness of the product were significantly higher than chicken breasts injected with only phosphoric acid.