Incorporating plant-based ingredients into meat products faces challenges regarding raw material stability and its impact on sensory quality. This study aimed to apply multivariate statistical analysis to map the interdependency between the degradation of bioactive compounds in stored buckwheat flour and the color change of emulsion-type chicken sausages. Buckwheat flour was stored for 0, 3, 6, and 9 months at 40 °C and incorporated (3%) into sausage formulations. The relationship between flour antioxidant parameters (TPC, FRAP, individual phenolics) and sausage instrumental color was analyzed using Pearson’s correlation, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Linear Regression. Results indicate that storage causes a drastic drop in antioxidant power (FRAP decreased 2.9-fold) and epicatechin degradation. A strong positive correlation was established between flour FRAP values and sausage redness (a*, r=0.984). PCA confirmed clear differentiation between fresh and aged samples based on oxidative status. The linear regression model predicted redness with high apparent precision (R2=0.969), though residual analysis (RMSE=0.274) revealed non-linear deviations. In conclusion, the antioxidant power of the raw material is a critical predictor of final product color. While linear models provide high accuracy, future research should consider non-linear algorithms to fully address complex matrix interactions.
Janković et al. (Thu,) studied this question.