Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

Ms. Ref. No.:	applsci-2302883
Title:	The effect of pasture level and ageing time on the physicochemical and sensory characteristics of beef meat
Journal	Applied science
Reviewers’ comments:

Increasing knowledge is always desirable, particularly when it comes to developing healthier products. In the manuscript presented "Substitution of pork fat with beeswax-structured oleogels in semi-smoked sausages" some points need to be revised to make it suitable for possible publication as described below:

 

Introduction

Given that beeswax is used in this research and that its use in meat products is relatively recent, to provide more information on its characteristics and the results obtained by other authors when using it in the preparation of meat products. Some studies that could be considered would be:

Gao, Y., Li, M., Zhang, L., Wang, Z., Yu, Q., & Han, L. (2021). Preparation of rapeseed oil oleogels based on beeswax and its application in beef heart patties to replace animal fat. Lwt, 149, 111986.

Gómez-Estaca, J., Pintado, T., Jiménez-Colmenero, F. et al. Assessment of a healthy oil combination structured in ethyl cellulose and beeswax oleogels as animal fat replacers in low-fat, PUFA-enriched pork burgers. Food Bioprocess Technol 12, 1068–1081 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11947-019-02281-3

Moghtadaei, M., Soltanizadeh, N., & Goli, S. A. H. (2018). Production of sesame oil oleogels based on beeswax and application as partial substitutes of animal fat in beef burger. Food Research International, 108, 368-377.

 

Material and Methods

·       Why is each photograph named A-control, B-OG7 and C-OG10? This way of naming the products does not occur again in the manuscript.

·       To organize the description of the methods according to the results section.

·       To complete description of the chromatography equipment (detector, flow, gases and pattern used,...) and describe first the extraction of the fat and the obtaining of the acid methyl esters. The sum of SFA, MUFA and PUFA, which then appear in the results, are also missing.

·       After seeing the photographs (to which I recommend improving the quality), differences in colour can be observed. Why have the authors not considered measuring instrumental colour?

·       Was the panel for sensory analysis a trained panel? If yes, please specify and if no, I consider that 20 participants are not enough to do a sensory analysis.

·       The statistical analysis section needs more clarity. What type of ANOVA was used? What were the degrees of significance used? What was the n in each batch?

 

Results

·       First of all, this section includes not only results, but also discussion of the results, so this section should be Results and discussion.

·       It is reiterative throughout the manuscript to use "slightly" to describe differences between the results, but it is really necessary to indicate the level of significance obtained from the statistical analysis of the results. In this case, the wording results in a lack of rigor in a scientific paper. Consequently, to indicate the level of significance obtained.

·       In general, the significance level is missing in the results section, which is necessary even if it is indicated for example in lines 219: "significantly reduced", line 255-256: “significantly reduced” or line 252: "significantly predominants".

·       In Figures 3 and 4, the significance level is missing.

·       The figures do not have a figure caption explaining all the symbols and abbreviations used.

·       What statistical analysis has been performed in the sensory analysis? The description of the results does not show whether the differences are statistically significant or not.

·       In section 3.2 Fatty acid composition of semi-smoked sausages, fatty acid percentages are given to three decimal places and in table 3, the number indicating the percentage of fatty acids should have two decimal places instead of three.

·       The bibliographic reference to the statement made in lines 247-248 is missing. The same is also true for the statement made on line 271.

·       In the section 3.3 Microstructure of semi-smoked sausages, in line 293, delete (A), since it has no role.

·       The results of section 3.4 Sensory characteristics of semi-smoked sausages, despite being a very important section in the design of new products, do not have the necessary robustness, since the statistical results among control, OG7 and OG10 are not shown. In addition, the question remains as to whether the panel is valid for this analysis depending on whether it is trained or not.

Conclusions

I recommend improving the conclusions section, avoiding summarizing the results.

 

            The manuscript needs to be improved in order to be reconsidered after a major revision.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Please find attached manuscript and answers to comments

 

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Analyzing the manuscript I make the following observations:

• It would be interesting pictures on the color cross section, compared to the blank sample.

• What is the share of meats in the manufacture of salami and pork fat?

• Why was it taken as a basis of study in the sausage recipe, replacing pork fat replaced by oleogels in the amount of 7% (OG7) and 10% (OG10) ?

• Have experiments been done for other higher or lower values of pork fat replacement? How have the results evolved from this point of view from the blank sample and from the point of view of sensory analysis?

• What is the maximum degree of replacement of pork fat taking into account the health of the product and the degree of acceptability of it from the point of view of consumption?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Please find attached manuscript and answers to comments

 

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Fat replacement in such a high fat product is of much importance and a challenging process. It was reported that retention of consistency becomes difficult and a final product with undesirable softness, thus textural analysis would have been of high importance. However, microstructural analysis can be correlated to texture. Results of the sensory analysis is for oleogel based products is of high importance in order to be introduced in the industrial manufacturing.

Several aspects should be improved:

in the abstract the authors did not clearly described on what their study is based on hence it should mention the chemical composition determination and the microstructural analysis, but also results related to this.

introduction

lines 45 needs citation

in lines 61-63 maybe you should revisit the types of oleogels already used in meat products instead of a general presentation.

In line 67-68 should be mentioned that this are already food grade substances.

lines 72-75 lacks citation and also you should further research why the beeswax has structuring capacity, giving the fact that you have microstructural analysis in your work.

after line 80 you should discuss the usage of monoglycerides also.

in lines 81 should reformulate the aim of the study instead of describing what you did. explain why you did it and then how.

The study should enhance that you used local beeswax. It should have been important to know its composition and melting properties.

Also you should emphasis in the aim of the study and introduction that your sausages are made of a mixture of different meats because as far as I know this kind of product has not been studied yet in the fat replacement with oleogel studies.

Because of the The thermal treatment involved, oxidation studies should have been carried on, but also quality control (texture, appearance) at each manufacturing step whould have been of high interest.

lines 204 should describe the parameters evaluated, coding, what was tasted between repetitions. what is view on the cut and why is different from appearance, where the evaluators trained to understand the differencies?

Results

table 2 needs statistical analysis. ph should be included in table 2 not presented as separate figure.

The results related to the microstructure should be further discussed.

in the sensory analysis, for the taste is the scoring for og7 statistically similar to the control?

lines 308 need citation

lines 309, nor your replacement had effects on the aroma. Please discuss your results in comparison with other findings, not just other findings.

Given the different scoring of color, even if in the pictures their look different, some color asessement would have been of great use. The panelist evaluated the cut color or the other side? you could have evaluated both.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Please find attached manuscript and answers to comments

 

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has improved but still needs minor revision:

 ·       As requested, a description is needed of how acid methyl esters are obtained for gas chromatographic analysis.

·       The statistical analysis section needs more clarity. What type of ANOVA was used, one-way? What were the degrees of significance used of the model? What was the n in each batch?

·       The statistical analysis section indicates the degree of significance for the Tukey test, p≥0.05, but does not indicate the p-values considered that are taken into account: p<0.05; p<0.01; p<0.001. They also need to appear in the tables, for which it is advisable to add another column and reflect this in the text.

            The manuscript needs to be improved in order to be reconsidered after a minor revision.

Author Response

Corrected and added new text in green:

The resulting solution can then be subjected to acid-catalyzed esterification to obtain the corresponding fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs).

The data collected during the measurements were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance ANOVA test. Differences between treatments in the ANOVA were identified using Tukey's test (significance level p < 0.05). The results are considered statistically significant at p≤ 0.05. Data are presented as mean values ± standard deviation (SD). All analyses were conducted using the statistical software Minitab 16 (Minitab Inc., USA). In this study three separate batches of each formulation of sausage were prepared and conducted triplicate analyses on each sample.

 

p-value columns were added into Tables

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been improved.

Author Response

Thank you

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors improved the manuscript according to the reviewers comments.

Author Response

Thank you!