Effect of natural antioxidants on the colour and lipid stability of paprika salami

The typical red colour of paprika salamis is a very important quality attribute but it is also very susceptible to oxidation. Rosemary extracts and lycopene appear to be efficient antioxidants for dry fermented sausages. The complicated structure of dried sausages with different kinetics of colour changes was evaluated using VIA software NIS-Elements 2.20 and lightness L*, redness a*, yellowness b*, mean red (R), mean green (G), and mean blue (B) were measured; the ratio of red r = R/(R + G + B) and hue h = arctg (a*/b*) were calculated. The addition of rosemary extract has positively affected the colour and suppressed lipid oxidation in both meat and lard particles in the paprika salami. Even more satisfactory results were obtained by adding both the rosemary extract and lycopene. Video image analysis enabled to perform colour measurements of meat and lard particles separately, which could not be done by any available method (reflective spectrophotometry).