Tez özetleri Astronomi ve Uzay Bilimleri Anabilim Dalı

Modified Atmosphere Packaging of stuffed mussel

In recent years, life style and demands of the consumer changed, therefore ready to eat foods became important in Turkey. With the growing demand in this developing sector, to increase the diversities of these products and to offer new alternatives to the consumers, but to keep them -as long as possible- in a good condition has also gained an important role.

In this study, we aimed to detect the effect of modified atmosphere packaging technology on the sensory, chemical and microbial quality of stuffed mussel and to determine the shelf life of cold stored stuffed mussels packaged with modified atmosphere packaging.

The mussels caught from Bosphorus, İstanbul were used for the preparation of stuffed mussels after the cleaning processing. Stuffed mussels were divided into three groups. First group was packed under atmospheric conditions (control group), %50 N2/%50 CO2 gas combination was used for the packaging of the second group, and %100 CO2 was applied for the packaging of the third group. All groups were stored at 4 ±1ºC.

At the first experiment, control samples were acceptable until the 11th day of the storage, but the groups packed either %50 N2/%50 CO2 or %100 CO2 were acceptable until the 13th day of the storage according to the results of sensory analysis. At the second experiment, control samples were acceptable until the 13th day of the storage and the group packed with %100 CO2 was acceptable until the 15th day of the storage. But the group packed with %50 N2/%50 CO2 was still acceptable at the 15th day of the storage. In all groups, TMA-N values of the samples did not reach to the limit values during the storage. TBA values increased at the beginning of storage in all groups and then decreased. Then, these values followed by a decrease at the end of the storage. However at the first experiment, TVB-N values of control group exceeded the limit value on day 13, but the other groups exceeded the limit value on day 15. However, TVB-N values of the sample were high at the beginning of storage. Therefore, TVB-N values were not corraleted with the sensory proportion of stuffed mussel, and did not indicate the spoilage at the second experiment. While the mesophilic and psychrophilic aerobic bacteria counts of first experiment’s groups reached to the limit values at the 15th day of storage, mesophilic aerobic bacteria counts of the %100 CO2 group were lower than the bacteria counts of the other ones. At the second experiment, mesophylic and psychrophilic aerobic bacteria counts remained below the limits in all groups during the storage, and the samples packed with 100% CO2 contained lower bacteria load than the others at the end of the study.

In our study, sensory analyses were the main criteria to detect the spoilage between the groups. While the group packed with %50 N2/%50 CO2 was acceptable until the 13th day of the storage at the first experiment, the group packed with %50 N2/%50 CO2 was still acceptable at the 15th day at the second experiment. According to our results; in the both experiments, the group packed with %50 N2/%50 CO2 gave the best sensory results.