Effects of Different Thawing Methods on the Quality Characteristics of the Duck Leg Meat

In order to reduce product loss and guarantee product quality, this paper used frozen duck leg meat as raw material. The data would be provided to the enterprises as a theoretical reference. Four kinds of thawing methods, refrigerated thawing, room temperature thawing, running water thawing, and microwave thawing were used. The effects of thawing methods on the quality were discussed including water retention, pH, color, thiobarbituric acid value (TBARS), carbonyl groups, Ca²⁺-ATPase, total sulfhydryl groups, histological properties. Combined with gel electrophoresis and Raman spectroscopy, the degradation and the secondary structure of proteins were analyzed. The results showed that refrigerated thawing had minimum thawing loss, red color, muscle fiber gap (6.97 μm), and tight tissue structure. Lipid oxidation and protein oxidation were mild with minimum thiobarbituric acid value (0.16 mg/100 g), carbonyl content (0.16 nmol/mg), and maximum total sulfhydryl content (149.10 μmol/g), and Ca²⁺-ATPase activity (2.69 U/mg). Gel electrophoresis showed light protein degradation and Raman spectroscopy showed a stable and ordered secondary structure of the protein with high alpha helix content (42.33%). Compared with refrigerated thawing, the effect of running water thawing on water retention, color, histological properties, lipid oxidation, and protein oxidation of duck leg meat was slightly heavier, followed by room temperature thawing and more serious effect of microwave thawing. Collectively, refrigerated thawing is the optimal thawingmethod with less effect on the quality loss of frozen duck leg meat.