Digital Evaluation of Nitrite-Reduced “Kulen” Fermented Sausage Quality

Table 3

Oral processing parameters of dry sausages formulated with different nitrite levels (mean ± standard deviation).

	N110	N55	NF
Number of chewing strokes	22.79 ± 2.23^1	22.37 ± 2.45^1	20.62 ± 0.77^2
Consumption time of one bite (s)	17.04 ± 2.03^1	16.83 ± 2.58^1	14.83 ± 1.05^2
Chewing rate (chew/s)	1.34 ± 0.08^1	1.34 ± 0.11^1	1.39 ± 0.07^1
Eating rate (g/s)	0.45 ± 0.05^1	0.43 ± 0.04^1	0.48 ± 0.08^1
Average bite size (g)	7.62 ± 0.51^1	7.26 ± 0.96^1	7.02 ± 1.10^1

N110, 110 mg/kg of NaNO2; N55, 55 mg/kg of NaNO2; NF nitrite-free. Values in the same row not followed by a common number differ significantly ().