Volatile Production and Lipid Oxidation of Irradiated Cooked Sausage with Different Packaging

and Implications Irradiation dose had a significant effect on the production of volatiles in both vacuumand aerobic-packaged cooked pork sausage, but its effect on the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) values was minor. Storage increased the production of volatiles and changed the composition of volatiles only in aerobic-packaged sausage. Among the volatile components, 1-heptene and 1-nonene were influenced most by irradiation dose, and aldehydes by packaging type. The TBARS values and volatiles of vacuum-packaged irradiated cooked sausage had very low correlation.The TBARS, however, had very high correlation with the amount of aldehydes and total volatiles, and ketones and alcohols with long retention times in aerobic-packaged pork sausage. Heptene and 1-nonene could be used as indicators for irradiation, and propanal, pentanal, and hexanal for the oxygen-dependent changes of cooked meat. The results indicated that irradiation had some effect on lipid oxidation of cooked pork sausages, especially with aerobic packaging, but oxygen availability (packaging) to meat during storage had much stronger impact. The low correlations of irradiation-dependent volatiles (e.g., 1-heptene and 1-nonene) with TBARS values regardless of packaging and storage conditions indicated that volatile compounds responsible for irradiation odor were different from those of lipid oxidation odor in cooked pork sausages.