Effects of Cold Plasma Treatments on Lipids and Protein Oxidation Properties of Mutton

With fresh mutton as the research object, the effects of different cold plasma treatment conditions (treatment time, treatment voltage, treatment times, post-storage time after treatment) on mutton were studied by measuring mutton chromatism, pH value, thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) value, carbonyl content, total sulfhydryl content, and protein surface hydrophobicity. The results showed that cold plasma treatment increased L^* value, and decreased a^* value and b^* value of mutton. When the treatment voltage exceeded 50 kV, the a^* value decreased significantly (P<0.05), but the total color (ΔE) difference between the treatment groups had no significant difference (P>0.05). TBARS value, carbonyl content and surface hydrophobicity were increased gradually with the extension of treatment time, treatment voltage and storage time after treatment. When the treatment time was as long as 5 min, TBARS value of mutton was increased to 0.215 mg/kg, the pH value and total sulfhydryl content of mutton showed the opposite trend. When total treatment time was fixed (3 min), with the increase of treatment times, TBARS value, carbonyl content, and surface hydrophobicity of mutton were decreased, while pH value and total sulfhydryl content were increased. Therefore, cold plasma treatment could not affect the color significantly. However it promoted the oxidation of both lipids and protein in mutton.