Effect of cooking and in vitro digestion on the stability of co-enzyme Q10 in processed meat products

The use of CoQ10 fortification in the production of a functional food has been demonstrated in the past but primarily for dairy products. This study aimed to determine the bio-accessibility of CoQ10 in processed meat products, beef patties and pork breakfast sausages, fortified with CoQ10. Both the patties and sausages were fortified with a micellarized form of CoQ10 to enhance solubility to a concentration of 1 mg/g of sample (NovaSolQ®). An assay was developed combining in vitro digestion and HPLC analysis to quantify the CoQ10 present in fortified products (100 mg/g). The cooking retention level of CoQ10 in the products was found to be 74 ± 1.42% for patties and 79.69 ± 0.75% for sausages. The digestibility for both products ranged between 93% and 95%, sausages did have a higher digestibility level than patties but this was not found to be significant (P < 0.01).