Abstract:  Nitrite is usually used as food additive in meat products, which can develop pink color, inhibit the growth of food spoilage bacteria, contribute to the favor and the texture et al. And different sodium nitrite addition has effects on the texture of pork during curing. In this paper, effect of different nitrite addition on pork texture during curing was studied by Texture Profile Analysis (TPA) with a texture machine. It revealed that the hardness, adhesiveness, springiness and chewiness of cured pork increased and cohesiveness and resilience decreased during the 48h-curing time. Among these texture attributes, hardness chewiness and resilience changed significantly, while adhesiveness springiness and cohesiveness not significantly under p<0.05. Also we found the moisture, fat, protein and collagen contents decreased after nitrite addition to the cured pork. Through the correlation analysis between chemical contents and texture measurements, it indicated that moisture was higher correlated to the springiness, adhesiveness and resilience with correlation coefficient of 0.891, 0.770 and 0.770 respectively. And nitrite correlated higher to the springiness, 0.808, collagen to the resilience, 0.740, while fat and protein lower relatively.

Key words: sodium nitrite, curing, TPA