An investigation on the joint effects of some food additives promoting the formation of cured meat color and being employed in processing meat products, and some metal ions naturally occurring in meat on the behavior of nitrite was undertaken by determining nitrite by a colorimetric method proposed in the previous paper.
The results obtained are as follows:
(1) The decomposition of nitrite was fairly promoted by the addition of Na-ascorbate, Na-iso-ascorbate and Fe
2+, respectively, and particularly in the case of Fe
2+, a significant decomposition of nitrite took place at pH 6.0 as well as at pH 5.0.
(2) It was found that all the test additives tended to promote the decomposition of nitrite in the presence of Na-ascorbate and this tendency was more remarkable at pH 5.0 than at pH 6.0.
Among the additives tested, both of Fe
2+ and Fe
3+ were the most efficient in promoting the decomposition of nitrite, which was considerably accelerated by heat treatment at pH 6.0 as well as at pH 5.0.
(3) Na-ascorbate was found more effective than Na-isoascorbate in accelerating the decomposition of nitrite.
The difference in the effect between the two reductants was more clearly shown when the test solutions were cooked for one hour at 75°C after being kept for 72 hours at 4°C.
(4) The effect of nicotinamide on the behavior of nitrite was tested by manometric techniques.
The results indicated that the addition of nicotinamide significantly promoted not only the decomposition of nitrite but also the formation of nitric oxide from nitrite in the presence of Na-ascorbate.
The fact that nicotinamide has promoted the evolution of nitric oxide which is indispensable to the formation of cooked cured meat color, may explain the promoting effect of nicotinamide on the color formation of cured meat products.
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