Antioxidants are often added to fresh and processed meat and meat products to prevent lipid oxidation (decomposition), stop the development of off-flavours, and improve colour stability.

Recently food manufacturers have moved towards using natural antioxidants such as plant extracts, herbs, spices and essential oils, instead of synthetic ones in order to meet consumer demand for more natural products.

In their new review article, in Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), the authors looked at numerous studies to identify such natural ingredients.

Some of these ingredients include: Oregano Essential Oils, which can be used on raw and cooked beef; pomegranate juice extract, which can be used on cooked chicken patties; green tea extract, which can be used on dry spicy sausage; mustard Leaf kimchi extract, which can be used on refrigerated raw ground pork and kimichi extracts, for cooked ground pork.

Further Reading

The complete chart of antioxidants and the full paper are available here.