Chia seeds, flour and coproduct added to frankfurter sausages
What it found
Adding 3% chia products to frankfurters raised their fiber content and slowed fat breakdown during chilled storage.
A panel of 30 people rated all the reformulated sausages as acceptable.
What they found
Studies in people
Taste and appearance scores
A group of 30 people scored the sausages on a 9-point scale. Those with chia seeds or flour scored similarly to plain ones, except for slightly lower color scores. Sausages with chia coproduct scored lower overall but were still judged acceptable.
Other findings
Nutrition and fiber content
Adding any of the three chia forms lowered moisture and raised dietary fiber in the sausages. Fat content went up when chia seeds or chia flour were used, likely adding chia oil to the mix.
Fat breakdown during storage
All sausages stayed below the level where fat starts to taste rancid over 21 days. Plain sausages showed a 59% rise in fat oxidation markers, while those with chia flour rose only 19%.
Nitrite levels dropped faster
Leftover nitrite fell by about 65% in plain sausages after 21 days. In sausages with chia, it fell by roughly 90%, which the authors link to natural plant compounds in chia reacting with the nitrite.
Bacteria counts stayed low
Total bacteria and lactic acid bacteria grew during the 21 days in all batches. By the end, every sample stayed below 5.0 log cfu/g, a level the authors say is too low to spoil the product.
What the authors conclude
- They suggest that adding chia seeds, flour or oil-pressing leftovers to frankfurters is a workable way to improve their nutritional makeup without harming their texture or shelf life.
- The authors note that these chia ingredients helped slow fat breakdown and lowered leftover nitrite during chilled storage.
- They point out that even though tasters noticed some differences, they still found all the chia versions acceptable.
How it was done
Processed meats like frankfurters have been linked to health concerns, so the meat industry wants to improve their nutritional profile. Chia has potential for making foods more nutritious, but its leftover material from oil pressing had not been tested in food processing before.
Researchers made four batches of frankfurters using a traditional recipe with pork meat and fat. They left one batch plain and added 3% chia seeds, 3% chia flour or 3% chia coproduct to the other three. The sausages were vacuum packed, stored at 4 °C and tested over 21 days, while 30 untrained people tasted them on day 0.
What it can’t tell you
- This work looked at how chia changed the sausage itself, not what happens inside the human body.
- It cannot show whether eating these reformulated frankfurters affects your health differently than regular ones.
- The tasting panel was small and untrained, so everyday shoppers might rate them differently.
Who paid
- Authors work at
- Miguel Hernández University, Spain; Instituto de Agroquímica y Tecnología de Alimentos (IATA-CSIC), Spain
The paper
- Title
- Chia (Salvia hispanica L.) products as ingredients for reformulating frankfurters: Effects on quality properties and shelf-life
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Cite
- Fernández-López J, Lucas-González R, Viuda-Martos M, et al (2019). Chia (Salvia hispanica L.) products as ingredients for reformulating frankfurters: Effects on quality properties and shelf-life. Meat science. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2019.05.028Free full textPubMed 31158600DOI
Summary written 1 Oct 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error