An Overview on Antioxidants Activity of Polysaccharide Edible Films and Coatings Contains Essential Oils and Herb Extracts in Meat and Meat Products

According to the environmental problems that plastic packaging was made in recent decades, edible film/ coating have been drawn attention due to their beneficial properties. Alginate, chitosan, starch, CMC and etc. are of the most common edible films/coatings. On the other hand, the meat and meat products are vulnerable to oxidative reactions that reduce their quality and also lose nutrients and risk consumers health and safety. A strategy to limit this, is use of a wide range of antioxidants. Nowadays, consumers tend to use natural antioxidants due to the complication of synthetic antioxidants. Essential oil and herbal extracts are among natural compounds with high functional properties but they had undesirable effects on sensorial quality of meat and meat products in high doses. An interesting strategy to overcome this limitation is application of polysaccharide edible film/coating as carrier of these compounds. Natural antioxidants in edible films/coatings improve the film matrix and cause an increase in meat shelf-life, benefits sensorial quality and also enhance nutritional value of meat. This paper discusses the combining of natural antioxidants with polysaccharide film and coating in meat and meat products.