3. Results and discussion
3.1. Colour changes in fried chicken nuggets
The lightness (L*) value of the fried chicken nuggets
decreased with frying time as shown in Fig. 1. The decrease
in the L* value was initially rapid but slowed down as
frying times increased. The values ranged from 52 to 59 at
300 s frying depending on the different oil types used.
Analysis of variance showed that the degrees of oil
hydrogenation and frying time have significant effect on
lightness of fried chicken nuggets. However, separation of
means analysis indicated that chicken nuggets fried in
oils with lower degrees of hydrogenation (0% and 20%)
resulted in products with significantly lower lightness
values than other samples fried in oils with higher degrees
of hydrogenation (40–100%). The lightness data was
adequately described by the first-order reaction kinetics.
For 0–20% hydrogenation level, changes in the lightness
(L*) parameter were described by Eq. (3) while Eq. (4)
describes the L* parameter in the case of oil hydrogenation
range of 40–100%.
Hydrogenation: 0–20%:
L ¼ 76:82 e0:046t
.