Fig. 4 shows the developments of peroxide value (PV) for different
treatments during dry-salted bacon processing. As can be seen
that the PV for all treatments increased significantly (p < 0.05) during
salting stage. This increase was salt (NaCl) content dependent,
which increased significantly (p < 0.05) with salt content increasing.
Thereafter, during drying–ripening stage, both the formation
and degradation rates of lipid hydroperoxides were promoted at
the same time due to the rapid increase of process temperature,
especially the degradation rate. Because lipid hydroperoxides are
generally considered to be harmful to the health of consumers,
so their decrease in meat products is desirable (Girotti, 1998).
However, on the other hand, lipid oxidation is a primary approach
to form the characteristic flavour during dry-salted or dry-cured
meat products processing; and most of the volatile flavour compounds
are the further oxidation or degradation products of hydroperoxides.
So, accelerating the degradation rate of lipid per