After 90 day of refrigerated storage, irradiated dry fermented
sausages had significantly lower (po0.01) CIE an
- and CIE bn
-
values than those of the non-irradiated ones, while this trend was
not found in Ln
-values. Storage tended to decrease the lightness of
non-irradiated dry fermented sausages while redness and yellowness
tended to increase. The effects of irradiation on the color
changes in fermented sausages are not well established, but the
fading of redness in the irradiated dry fermented sausages during
storage could be related to the destruction of nitrosoheme
pigment by irradiation process.
The results suggested that the increase in redness and yellowness
immediately after irradiation are a reversible phenomenon,
and the cured meat pigment can also be oxidized during storage.
Previous studies have reported that nitrite inhibited the changes
in color by irradiation (Fan et al., 2004), but Cava et al. (2009)
observed that the CIE an
-values declined markedly upon extended
storage of dry-cured ham.