Comparative Evaluation of the Nutritional, Physical and Sensory Properties of Beef, Chicken and Soy Burgers

The sporadic technological advancement witnessed worldwide since the beginning of the twenty first century has encouraged civilization and urbanization culminating into changes in lifestyle from active to sedentary globally. People now prefer instant foods and eating out in different food service units to home cooked meals. Burger is a special delicacy which is seldom prepared at home but commonly purchased from restaurants. The need to encourage human consumption of soybean cannot be over emphasized due to the unrivalled nutritional and health benefits derivable from it especially in combating some communicable diseases, the epidemic of which is becoming alarming globally, hence, harnessing soybean potentials in the production of burger is of pertinent importance. This experimental study was therefore designed to compare the nutritional, physical and sensory properties of soy burger with those of the conventional beef and chicken burgers. Soy cheese was prepared from soybeans using appropriate culinary procedure. Equal portions of minced beef, minced chicken and soy cheese were processed into burgers using basic recipe. Beef, chicken and soy burgers were subjected to proximate, thiamine, riboflavin, cholesterol, colour, texture and sensory evaluation using standard methods. Mean data were compared using Analysis of Variance at p≤0.05. Protein content (Dry Weight Basis) for Beef burger (BB), Chicken Burger (CB) and Soy Burger (SB) were 57.87, 50.36 and 53.89% respectively. In similar sequence fat content were 10.02(BB) 10.15(CB) and 8.58 (SB). SB was significantly higher than the other two samples in crude fibre, riboflavin and niacin while its cholesterol content was negligible. There was no significant difference between SB and CB in lightness and redness while the values for yellowness were 10.60, 25.12 and 18.25 for BB, CB AND SB respectively. In the same vein there was no significant difference in chewiness, cohesiveness and springiness of the three burger samples. For overall acceptability BB was most acceptable followed by SB and then CB. The nutritional, physical and sensory properties of soy burger were comparable to that of beef and chicken burgers, hence, soy burger may compete favourably with the conventional types of burger and is hereby presented as a cholesterol-free alternative with higher health benefits suitable for all even vegans. Household and commercial production and consumption of soy burger is hereby recommended.