**1. Introduction**

Consumer perception of processed meat products is a critical issue for the meat industry. In recent years consumers are increasingly conscious about healthy diet. However, most of the processed meat products contain high amounts of fat, which are related to chronic diseases such as obesity and cardiovascular heart diseases. Health organizations have suggested to reduce the intake of total dietary fat, particularly saturated fatty acids and cholesterol, as a mean to prevent cardiovascular heart diseases (NCEP, 1988). Consumers now want low or reduced-animal fat products with high palatability and nutritional quality (Pietrasik & Duda, 2000).

Animal fat is a major factor that determines the eating quality of meat products including texture, flavor and mouth-feel (Keeton, 1994). Therefore, reducing fat levels in meat products is not as simple as using less amounts of fat in the formulation. Twenty percent or higher reduction of fat content in meat products can lead to an unacceptable product texture, flavor and appearance (Miles, 1996). Total substitution of fat with water produces unacceptably soft and rubbery product with an increased moisture loss during processing (Claus & Hunt, 1991).

The problems caused by fat reduction in processed meat products can be minimized by replacing animal fat with fat replacers (Colmenero, 1996). Several studies have demonstrated that replacing animal fat with soy products or carbohydrate is successful in textural and sensory properties of low-fat products (Decker et al., 1986; Berry & Wergin, 1993; Yusof & Babji, 1996). Isolated soy proteins (ISP) were successfully incorporated into meat products to reduce fat, improve yields, and enhance emulsion stability. Carageenan increases yield, consistency, sliceability, and cohesiveness, while decreasing purge in low-fat products (Foegeding & Ramsey, 1986; Xiong et al., 1999; Lin & Mei, 2000). Maltodextrin, which is a hydrolysis by-product of starch, is widely used in foods as a funcitonal biopolymer that provides desirable texture, stability, appearance, and flavor (Wang & Wang, 2000).

Olive oil is a vegetable oil with the highest level of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and has attracted attention as a replcacer for animal fat in processed meat products. Olive oil

Meat Products Manufactured with Olive Oil 423

continued. Finally, the mixture is homogenized for additional 3 min and then used for

The incorporation of olive oil has been studied in fermented sausages (Bloukas et al., 1997; Kayaardi & Gök, 2003; Koutsopoulos et al., 2008) and beef patties (Hur et al, 2008). Partial replacement of animal fats with olive oil has also been tested (ranging between 3–10 g of olive oil per 100 g of product) in frankfurter sausages and low-fat products. Previous studies (Jiménez-Colmenero, 2007; López-López et al., 2009b) indicated that partial replacement of pork backfat with olive oil increased MUFA contents without significantly altering the n-

To develop healthier meat products, various technological options of replacing animal fat have been studied (Jiménez-Colmenero, 2007). Olive oil has been incorporated in meat emulsion systems such as frankfurters in liquid (Lurueña-Martinez et al., 2004; López-López et al., 2009a, 2009b) or interesterified form (Vural et al., 2004). However, oil-in-water emulsion is the most suitable technological option for stabilizing the non-meat fats added to meat derivatives as ingredients due to physicochemical properties (Bishop et al., 1993; Djordjevic et al., 2004). There are a number of procedures that can be used to produce a plant or marine oil-in-water emulsions (with an emulsifier, typically a protein of non-meat origin) for meat products (Jiménez-Colmenero, 2007), but only sodium caseinate has been used to stabilize olive oil for incorporation in frankfurter-type products (Paneras & Bloukas, 1994; Ambrosiadis et al., 1996; Paneras et al., 1998; Pappa et al., 2000; Choi et al., 2009).

Tables 1 and 2 are examples of fmomulas that use olive oil and different fat replacers in

Ingredients (%) Control ICM 1) ICMO 2) Pork ham 68.95 73.24 71.57 Pork backfat 19.25 - - Ice/water 9.75 7.71 9.38 Fat replacer ICM1) - 17.00 12.00 Olive Oil - - 5.00 NPS 3) 1.30 1.30 1.30 Phosphate 0.20 0.20 0.20 Sugar 0.50 0.50 0.50 Monosodium glutamate 0.05 0.05 0.05 Total 100 100 100

Table 1. Formulation of emulsion-type low-fat sausages manufactured with and without fat

manufacturing sausages and patties.

**3. Incorporation of olive oil in meat products** 

producing an emulsion-type sausage and pork patty.

1) Isolated soy protein: carrageenan: maltodextrin: water = 2:1:1:20.

6/n-3 ratio.

2) ICM+Olive Oil. 3) NaCl: NaNO2 = 99:1.

replacers.

has a high biological value due to a favorable mix of predominantly MUFA and naturally occurring antioxidants including vitamin E, vitamin K, carotenoids and polyphenols such as hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol and oleuropein. Oleic acid makes up 92% of the MUFA in foods, and 60-80% of the oleic acid comes from olive oil (Pérez-Jiménez et al., 2007). Olive oil contains 56-87% monosaturated, 8-25% saturated and 3.6-21.5% polyunsaturated fatty acids (IOOC, 1984). The potential health benefits of olive oil include an improvement in lipoprotein profile, blood pressure, glucose metabolism and antithrombotic profile. It is also believed that olive oil has a positive influence in reducing inflammation and oxidative stress. Thus, intake of MUFA may protect against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease. Olive oil is also reported to help prevent breast and colon cancer (Pérez-Jiménez et al., 2007, Waterman & Lockwood, 2007).

This chapter discusses the effect of olive oil on the quality of emulsion-type sausage (Moon et al., 2008) and pork patty (Hur et al., 2008) when used as an animal fat replacer in the products. The grade of olive oil used were extra virgin olive oil(defined by the European Union Commission reg. No. 1513/2001).
