Changes in oxidation, color and texture deteriorations during refrigerated storage of ohmically and water bath-cooked pork meat

•Storage and cooking methods accelerated oxidations in cooked meat.•OH-cooked meat had lower L⁎ and b⁎ and higher a⁎ values in meat during storage.•Lipid oxidation of cooked meat could be retarded by ohmic cooking.•Increased protein oxidation and hardness were detected in ohmically cooked meat.

In the present work, changes in lipid and protein oxidation, non-heme iron (NHI) content, color and texture parameters during refrigerated storage (7 days/4 °C) of ohmically (OH) and water bath (WB)-cooked pork meat were studied. A significant effect of refrigerated storage duration and cooking method on color, texture, lipid oxidation and carbonyl content was detected for OH-cooked and WB-cooked meat. The OH-cooked meat had better color appearance, lipid oxidative stability, slightly enhanced hardness and protein oxidation levels during 7 days of storage having lower values of TBARS, center lightness (L⁎), center/surface brownness (b⁎) and free thiol groups; however, there were higher values of center/surface redness (a⁎), non-heme iron, protein carbonyl and hardness compared to those from WB-cooked meat.Industrial relevanceThe conventional cooking protocols always result in quality deteriorations and reduced shelf-life in meat products due to longer cooking times. In this study, the ohmically-cooked meat showed comparable or improved oxidation levels, color appearance and texture attributes during 7 days of refrigerated storage. From an anti-oxidation perspective, the available data are provided for the application of ohmic cooking in Chinese commercial productions of cooked meat with high quality requirements that could be established.