Why healthy hotdogs are tough to make
Scientists have made an advance in their effort to replace animal fat in hot dogs, sausages, hamburgers and other foods with healthier fat.
They have solved the mystery of why hot dogs develop an unpleasant tough texture when vegetable oils replace animal fat.
Anna M. Herrero and colleagues explained that some brands of sausage (frankfurters) have been reformulated with olive oil-in-water emulsion as a source of more healthful fat.
With consumers gobbling up tens of billions of hot dogs annually, and the typical frankfurter packing 80 percent of its calories from fat, hot dogs have become a prime candidate for reformulation.
Some hot dogs reformulated with vegetable oil develop an unpleasant chewy texture.
Herrero`s team set out to uncover the chemistry behind that change with an eye to guiding food companies to optimise low-fat sausage manufacture.