Hydrophobicity and Solubility of Meat Proteins and Their Relationship to Emulsifying Properties

Surface hydrophobicity (S o ) of crude salt extracts of meat was determined fluorometrically using cis‐parinaric acid as a probe. Upon heating the extracts to 70°C, S o increased two‐ to threefold, whereas protein solubility (s) decreased to 20%. Further heating (to 85°C) resulted in slight decreases in both S o and s. Backwards stepwise multiple regression equations for prediction of emulsifying activity index (EAI) and emulsifying capacity (EC) were: EAI = 2.658 + 0.0001308 sS o , and EC =−35.30 + 6.459 s + 0.001317 sS o − 0.05463 s 2 . S o was most important for predicting emulsifying properties of samples with high (>50%) solubility, whereas solubility parameters were more influential for samples with low (<50%) solubility.