Study of the decrease of gel properties of liquid whole egg during storage

The gel strength and water holding capacity of the liquid whole egg after pasteurization during storage in 4℃ were determined. The results showed that gel strength and water holding capacity decrease 35% and 20% respectively.To investigate the reasons of the decline of the gel properties of LWE, change of sulfhydryl content and surface hydrophobicity were determined and their influence to gel properties were discussed. The results showed that protein surface hydrophobicity increased and total protein sulfhydryl groups decreased continuously during storage.Reduced and non-reduced SDS-PAGE showed that protein constitute kept stable without new strips appears.All these results suggested that the decrease of gelling ability of liquid whole egg may due to the disorderly gathering of protein and decreased disulfide group formed during storage.Both of these reasons may lead to the nonuniform gelling and decrease of the strength and water-holding capacity of whole egg gel during storage.