Effectiveness of babassu starch and oil coating with plasticizers to improve shelf life of eggs

The purpose of this study was to develop an edible coating containing babassu starch, babassu oil, and plasticizers to maintain egg quality. Firstly, it evaluated the effects of 5% babassu starch with 10% (SC-10%), 15% (SC-15%), and 20% (SC-20%) oil coating on egg quality. The effects of polyols such as mannitol and sorbitol alone or in combination on coating effectiveness were also assessed. For the first part, all formulations containing starch and/or babassu oil effectively preserved the internal quality characteristics of weight loss and Haugh units of stored eggs for 28 days. For the yolk and albumen percentages, the eggs for the treatments containing oil (SC-10%, SC-15%, and SC-20%) had the values closest ( p < 0.05) to those of fresh eggs. Thus, according to these parameters, the presence of the oil in the coatings was more efficient in delaying egg quality. Despite the increase in albumen pH with the storage, the eggs stored with coatings kept the pH around 8.5. For the yolk color, the b * values of SC-10%, SC-15%, and SC-20% varied from 22.64 to 24.25 and did not differ ( p > 0.05) from fresh eggs. Regarding the shell color, ΔE values of coated eggs were higher in the starch babassu treatment (6.97), followed by the treatments SC-10% (4.79), SC-15% (5.18), and SC-20% (5.17), and finally without coating (15.95). The formulation SC-10%, which contained 5% starch and 10% babassu oil, was selected to compare plasticizers. For the plasticizers, the babassu starch and oil in combination with 30% mannitol kept better the egg quality. Weight loss was lower ( p < 0.05) in eggs only with 30% of mannitol (2.69%) and the Haugh Units were higher (60.04). For the b * value of yolk, 30% of mannitol had higher values (48.83) ( p < 0.05) when compared to the control treatment (40.39). Thus, the presence of babassu starch (5%) and oil (10%) in combination with 30% mannitol maintains the egg quality during 28 days of storage. This study provides an approach that can potentially be applied to egg shelf life using products of the babassu industry.