Marination with citric acid, lemon, and grapefruit affects the sensory, textural, and microstructure characteristics of poultry meat

1. This study aimed to determine the effects of marination liquids prepared with citric acid (CA-0.5%), lemon (LJ-100%) and grapefruit (GJ-100%) juices on the pH, colour (L*, a*, b*, Chroma, hue angle, total colour differences), cooking loss (CL), water holding capacity (WHC) and marinade absorption (MA) of chicken breast meat. Textural, microstructure (scanning electron microscopy (SEM), confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM)) and sensory properties were investigated. 2. As a result of marination, there was a significant (P < 0.01) decrease in the CL and pH values and an increase in WHC and MA values of marinated meat. The L*, b* and chroma values of chicken breast meats marinated with all marinades increased significantly (P < 0.01). 3. While CLSM showed that LJ gave rise to a partial deterioration in muscle fibres, SEM indicated that LJ had irregular muscle fibres, some fibres were broken and separated from each other. The lowest hardness value was established in the LJ group from texture analysis. In the sensory analysis, marinated samples generally received higher scores from panellists compared with the control.