Mechanically separated meat samples were used in this work, which were obtained from poultry processing plants located in the state of Paraná, employing mechanical de- boning methods (Poss Limited, mod. PDE 2500).
After collecting the MDCM samples, they were im- mediately sent to the Physical-Chemical Laboratory of the production unit and divided into the following treat- ments: control treatment—in natura MDCM sample; 1.5% sodium chloride treatment (SC); 0.5% sodium erythor- bate treatment (SE1); 1.0% sodium erythorbate treatment (SE2); 0.1% ascorbic acid treatment (AA1); 0.2% ascor- bic acid treatment (AA2).
The following were used: Sodium chloride, minimum purity of 99.8% (Romani), ascorbic acid, minimum pu- rity of 99% (Makeni Chemicals) and sodium erythorbate, minimum purity of 98% (ICL Brasil).
The samples were appropriately homogenized, sepa- rated into smaller samples, supplemented with the agents 1.5% sodium chloride, 0.5% and 1.0% sodium erythor- bate and 0.1% to 0.2% ascorbic acid, and then identified and placed in refrigerator at 0°C, for 72 hours in order to simulate the conservation process of MDCM during the production, transport, packaging and industrialization pro- cess of the final product.
The analyses were performed 24 hours (1st day), 72 hours (3rd day) and 120 hours (5th day) after the produc- tion process of MDCM.