Evaluation of lipid ultraviolet absorption as a parameter to measure lipid oxidation in dark chicken meat.

The application of lipid UV absorption (235, 269, and 280 nm) to follow up lipid oxidation in dark chicken meat has been evaluated using raw and cooked samples with different alpha-tocopherol contents (modulated by dietary supplementation). To this purpose, when absorption was measured at 235 nm, second-derivative spectrophotometry did not show any significant advantage over nonderivative spectrophotometry. For absorption at 269 and 280 nm, nonderivative spectrophotometry more sensitively monitored lipid oxidation than second- and third-derivative spectrophotometry. In addition, only direct measurements at 235 and 269 nm and second-derivative measurements at 235 nm showed a limited usefulness to follow up lipid oxidation in our samples. However, these UV absorption parameters were much less effective than lipid hydroperoxide values measured through a ferrous oxidation-xylenol orange method and 2-thiobarbituric acid values determined by a third-derivative spectrophotometric method with acid aqueous extraction.