Quality of Cuttlefish as Affected by Different Thawing Methods

Figures & data

Table 1. Six methods of thawing frozen cuttlefish

Thawing method	Operation method
4^°C refrigerator thawing (RT)	Place the cuttlefish sample in a plastic tray and place it in a refrigerator at 4^°C to thaw.
Hydrostatic thawing (HT)	Put the cuttlefish sample in a constant temperature water bath at 25 ± 1^°C to thaw.
Flow water thawing (FWT)	Put the cuttlefish under 25 ± 1^°C tap water with a flow rate of 25 mL/s to thaw.
Saline solution thawing (SWT)	Prepare saline solution with a concentration of 3.0%, place the cuttlefish sample in the salt water, and thaw at room temperature (25 ± 1) °C.
Ultrasound water thawing (UWT)	Put the cuttlefish sample into the ultrasonic device, set the power to 200 W, the working frequency to 53 kHz, and the temperature to (25 ± 1) °C to defrost.
Microwave thawing (MT)	Put the cuttlefish sample in the microwave oven and set it to defrost mode.

Figure 1. Thawing curve of cuttlefish under different thawing methods.

Figure 2. Comparison of water retention of cuttlefish by different thawing methods. Thawing loss(A). Water holding capacity(B).Cooking loss(C).The letters “a–c” indicate significant differences (P < .05). Error bars show standard deviation.

Table 2. Comparison of whiteness values and texture of different thawing methods

	FS	HT	FWT	SWT	UWT	MT	RT
W	90.81 ± 0.67^d	91.32 ± 0.14 ^c	91.76 ± 0.09^b	91.81 ± 0.04^b	92.14 ± 0.15^a	91.08 ± 0.18 ^cd	92.27 ± 0.07^a
Hardness(g)	36838.24 ± 1055.30 ^b	20702.15 ± 347.92 ^c	24706.43 ± 842.47 ^c	37066.90 ± 951.88^a	24167.92 ± 694.37 ^c	25520.80 ± 950.73 ^c	25147.14 ± 892.67 ^c
Chewiness	20721.55 ± 551.70^b	12100.13 ± 113.50 ^c	18096.29 ± 350.25^b	30604.04 ± 926.01^a	11967.50 ± 588.17 ^c	17197.14 ± 321.97^b	17289.30 ± 486.59^b
Springiness	0.90 ± 0.04 ^a	0.81 ± 0.11^a	0.78 ± 0.06^a	0.89 ± 0.05^a	0.87 ± 0.11^a	0.92 ± 0.03^a	0.91 ± 0.03^a
Cohesiveness	0.73 ± 0.05 ^a	0.71 ± 0.07^a	0.66 ± 0.13^a	0.58 ± 0.09^a	0.75 ± 0.09^a	0.75 ± 0.05^a	0.73 ± 0.10^a

The letters “a–d” indicate significant differences (P < 0.05).

Figure 3. The effect of different thawing treatments on water migration in cuttlefish meat. LF-NMR T₂(A), T₂₁ (B), T₂₂ (C) and T₂₃ (D) relaxation time distributions of cuttlefish with different thawing processes. The percentage of the integral area of different T₂ intervals to the total area was shown in Figure 3E. The letters “a–e” indicate significant differences (P < .05). Error bars show standard deviation.

Figure 4. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of cuttlefish by different thawing methods.

Figure 5. The effect of different thawing methods on cuttlefish TVB-N(A). The effect of different thawing methods on cuttlefish MDA(B). Comparison of the total sulfhydryl content of cuttlefish under different thawing methods(C).

Figure 6. Effect of different thawing methods on ATR-FTIR spectra (A), secondary structure content (B), second-derivative fitted curve of the Amide I band (C) of myofibrillar protein in cuttlefish. The letters “a–c” indicate significant differences (P < .05).

Figure 6. Continued.

Figure 7. Comparison of the intrinsic fluorescence emission spectra of MP of cuttlefish under different thawing methods.

Figure 8. Comparison of microscopic observation of cuttlefish under different thawing methods. Arrows indicate cellular substances.