Abstract: This study was designed to investigate the effect of different species of raw meat (beef, pork and chicken) on the nutritional composition, rheological properties, and in vitro digestion properties of infant puree. The results showed that infant puree was found to be a high-protein, low-fat and high-moisture food. There were significant differences in the nutritional composition of the three meat purees investigated (P < 0.05). Beef puree had the highest protein content (11.01 ± 0.53)%, pork puree had the highest fat content (6.19 ± 0.42)% and chicken puree had the highest moisture content (81.15 ± 0.26)%. The rheological analysis showed that all products had a shear thinning behavior and weak gel-like properties dominated by elastic components. Their apparent viscosity and storage modulus (G’) showed a decreasing order of beef puree > pork puree > chicken puree. After two-step digestion with pepsin followed by pancreatin, the digestibility of pork puree was higher than that of the other two products and the particle size ranges of the three purees were reduced from 4.3–550.0 μm to 1.2–118.0 μm. After the digestion process, the particle size of beef puree was the smallest, (8.15 ± 0.94) μm, while there was no significant difference in particle size between pork puree and chicken puree. Overall, there were significant differences in physicochemical properties and digestibility among the three meat purees.

Key words: infant meat puree; nutrient; rheological properties; in vitro digestibility; particle size