Theoretically, increasing salt content in muscle will inhibit the
antioxidant enzyme activities, and the TBARS would increased concomitantly.
Consistent with the results of Lee et al. (1997) and
Hernández et al. (2002), our current results (negative correlation
between TBARS and antioxidant enzyme activities) also demonstrated
this hypothesis. However, Sárraga et al. (2002) observed
that higher level of GSH-Px activity was accompanied by higher level
of TBARS value in dry-cured Longissimus dorsi. Their given probable
reason for this phenomenon was that the muscle-stabilizing
action of the curing process leaded to decreasing the need for the
antioxidant enzymes action (Sárraga et al., 2002). But we considered
that, after salting of the pork belly, antioxidant enzymes still
played an important role in modulating lipid oxidation because the
GSH-Px and catalase still remained high catalytic activities until
the end of salting. To explain this difference, more attentions
should be paid for in the subsequent studies. The study of Pradhan
et al. (2000) may give our some instructions, perhaps we can also
added some inhibitors of the antioxidant enzymes during salting
stage to studied whether the curing process could lead to decreasing
the need for the antioxidant enzymes action in modulating
lipid oxidation in dry-cured meat products.