Effects of egg white on the thermal gel-forming ability of pink shrimp Pandalus eous meat

Abstract

For effective utilization of irregular-sized and low-value pink shrimp Pandalus eous as a raw material of gel products, the thermal gel-forming ability of pink shrimp meat was improved by using egg white. The shrimp meat formed thermal gels in the presence of 5% egg white when heated at 50-90℃, whereas suwari gel was not obtained when heated at 30 or 40℃. SDS-PAGE patterns of the thermal gels showed that proteolysis such as myosin heavy chain degradation in the shrimp meat was well suppressed by the addition of egg white when heated at 60℃; however, egg white had weak inhibitory effects on the proteolysis at 40℃. These results indicated that the thermal gel-forming ability of pink shrimp meat was improved as a result of suppressing the proteolysis by the addition of egg white when heated at 50-90℃. Therefore, it was concluded that direct heating is suitable for producing thermal gel products from pink shrimp meat with egg white.