THE FUNCTIONALITY OF BINDERS IN MEAT EMULSIONS

FRANKFURTERS enjoy wide acceptance as a processed food. Their composition is closely regulated by Federal Law (Bailey, 1970) and they can only be called “frankfurters” if they conform to standards of identity of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Until recently, an “imitation” label was required if these standards of identity were not met. New regulations (Mulhern, 1973) now permit marketing of imitation frankfurters meeting certain standards for nutrition and composition without an “imitation” label. The same regulations prohibit their designation as frankfurters. Imitation frankfurters produced under the new regulations will require similar nutritional and functional characteristics as conventional frankfurters. Reduced costs may be necessary for economic success. These objectives can be most logically met by using a class of materials known as sausage binders or extenders. Binders are permitted in conventional frankfurters at a level of 3.5%; in nonstandard products there is no restriction. Acceptable binders include such materials as starches and cereals as well as products containing significant amounts of protein such as soy flour, soy isolate (permitted at a 2% level), soy concentrate or nonfat dried milk (Bailey, 1970). While percent moisture content is restricted by regulations to 4 times % protein plus lo%, only meat protein and not binder proteins can be considered in this equation. Meat ingredients vary in their activity as fat stabilizers (Carpenter and Saffle, 1964). Therefore, an active binder can be used to compensate for reduced functionality when a nutritionally equivalent meat source of lower cost and reduced functionality is used. This is the function of binders in standard frankfurters. To be successful under the new regulations for imitation frankfurters, a binder should be capable of replacing some of the functions of the meat in an all-meat frankfurter, the most critical of which is to stabilize the fat during smoking and cooking. Recently binders have been criticized (Smith et al., 1973; Swift, C.E., 1973, Private communication; Sulzbacher, 1973) as not performing this function. The research reported here had a broad objective of determining whether binders in general, and whey products in particular, function as active sausage binders. The specific objective was to determine if binders could be used as partial replacements for meat in production of imitation frankfurters with resulting reduced cost.