Studies on the Mutagenicity, Lipids Peroxidation and Meat Structure of Cooked Pork in Relation to Storage and Reheating using a Microwave Oven

Pork was cooked using three kinds of instrument [electric pill (EG) for 5min., microwave oven (MW) for 6min. and reheated using a MW] and then extracted with methanol. The Ames test was performed on the methanol extracts, employing the S. typhimurium tester strain, TA100. The methanol extract of cooked pork showed high mutagenicity ion the 5.0 mg/plate without the S9 mix, but a higher mutagenicity was induced with the S9 mix With increasing refrigeration and freezing periods the extracts showed higher mutagenicities and TBA values, and the same results where shown with reheating. Correlations of the mutagenicity (-S9 mix) and rancidity of the pork cooked by EG, according to storage at and and reheated by MW (1 min), were r=0.85, 0.86, 0.98 and 0.83, respectively. When the MW was used for reheating, the refrigeration storage (r=0.98) showed a higher correlation coefficient than for that stored frozen (r=0.83). From the structure of cooked pork, as observed by SEM, many vapor pathways were viewed in the pork reheated using themicrowave oven.