Abstract

ALBUQUERQUE, Tânia Gonçalves; OLIVEIRA, M. Beatriz; SANCHES-SILVA, Ana  and  COSTA, Helena S.. Fatty Acids Profile, Cholesterol and Salt Content of Chicken Breaded Nuggets. Nutrícias [online]. 2014, n.22, pp.06-09. ISSN 2182-7230.

Introduction: Pre-fried foods, such as chicken breaded nuggets, are nowadays frequently consumed since they are easy and quickly prepared. Excessive consumption of processed foods is associated with a high intake of saturated fats, which are one of the factors for the development of obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Objectives: To determine the salt, total fat and cholesterol contents, and fatty acid profile in chicken breaded nuggets that were subject to different cooking methods (pre-fried, roasted and fried). Moreover, products of supermarket, commercial and fast-food brands were compared. Methodology: A supermarket and a commercial brand of chicken nuggets were acquired in the Lisbon region. These samples were fried and roasted. Moreover, chicken nuggets from a fast-food restaurant, which were already cooked, were also analysed. For the selected samples, the following parameters were determined: salt, total fat, cholesterol and fatty acids profile. The salt content was determined by Charpentier-Volhard’s titration. Total fat determination was performed according to the acid hydrolysis method followed by Soxhlet extraction using petroleum ether. For cholesterol determination in the analysed samples, a direct saponification method followed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection was used. To determine the fatty acids profile the extraction and methylation was performed in a single step and then samples were analysed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Results: The highest salt content was determined in the supermarket brand (1.61g/100g per edible portion). Comparing the applied cooking methods, it was found that, in average, frying is responsible for the higher levels of fat in the analysed foods. The highest cholesterol content of nuggets was observed in the commercial brand (55.8mg/100g per edible portion, roasted). Conclusions: The supermarket brand nuggets showed a higher content of total fat and salt, and the frying cooking method contributed also to higher contents of these two nutrients. The most abundant fatty acid was linoleic acid in all the analysed samples, before and after the cooking methods were applied.

Keywords : Fatty acids; Cholesterol; Chicken breaded nuggets; Nutritional labelling; Salt.

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