Thus, according to our results, rosemary powder improved considerably the redness of beef patties, and this effect was enhanced by the presence of ascorbic acid.
However, Yildiz-Turp and Serdaroglu (1998) did not find any difference during the first days of storage of chicken patties due to the presence of rosemary.
Nevertheless, it must be taken into account that their report concerned a white meat, in which a* values are much lower than those of red meats.
Ascorbic acid also had an additive effect with carnosine and taurine on meat redness.
So far, very few reports have been published on the effect of these antioxidants on meat colour.
Our results regarding carnosine and ascorbic acid are in good agreement with those of Lee, Hendricks, and Cornforth (1999).
Of all the colour parameters measured, only a* values have been plotted in Fig. 1, since it is well known that a* values are most closely related to the oxymyoglobin content of meat ( Renerre, Dumont, & Gatellier, 1996), but further CIE colour parameters L*, b*, chroma and hue were also measured; however, their results were only considered for principal component analysis, which will be shown and discussed later.