Exploring the gelation potentials of chicken heart batter: From by-product to product.

Chicken heart is the by-product of great amount in poultry industry owing to concentrated slaughter development, however, whose potential in food application is unclear. The gelation of chicken heart has great difficulties due to the muscle structure and protein structure of the heart. Therefore, different levels of sodium alginate (SA) were added into chicken heart batter (CHB) to investigate the gelation strategies. The results showed that the cooking loss of chicken heart gel (CHG) decreased by increasing SA level (0.12 %-0.48 %)，along with improved hardness, gumminess and chewiness. The G' and G" of CHB increased along with the SA addition, which mainly relates to hydrophobic interactions and disulfide bonds, followed by ionic bond and hydrogen bond. SA induced increased percentage of immobilized water and bound water. Moreover, the protein-SA interpenetrating network became denser and more uniform along with increased SA in CLSM and SEM images until CHG of 0.48 % SA. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that chicken heart is processed into gelation food, which endeavors to promote feed to food by a sustainable proposal.