## 2 Materials and Methods  
### Preparation of Meat Samples  
Chicken meat carcasses were purchased from a regional company (National Poultry Co., Jordan, located 90 miles south of Amman, Karak Governate-Al-Qatrana). The chickens were slaughtered under the supervision of highly qualified veterinary and animal production engineers and checked for health and carcass quality. After slaughtering, all chicken carcasses were moved to the meat laboratory (Animal Production Department/Agriculture College at Mutah University) under refrigeration. The chicken carcasses were placed in a large plastic container and mixed in water and ice at 4 \({}^{\circ}\)C until use. The laboratory team immediately cleaned the carcasses, removed all the leg/thigh meat parts, and deboned the meat. The collected raw thigh meat was cleaned of all the fat, connective tissue, and any obvious tissue that could affect the results. The thigh meat was then vacuum-packaged using oxygen-impermeable containers and kept in a large, prepared freezer unit at \(-20\)\({}^{\circ}\)C in the meat laboratory. On the first day of the current study, the meat was sufficiently thawed to begin grinding (8 mm plate and 3 mm plate using a Model DKA-1, Moulinex, Lyon, France), which was repeated twice. Four different meat batches mixed with 5% (_m/m_) _Aloe_ gel were prepared for treatment analysis. The experiment was designed to involve four distinct treatments: (1) Control, (2) 300 ppm essential oil of _Origanum syriacum_ L. (OR-S), (3) 300 ppm essential oil of _Origanum vulgare_ (OR-V), and (4) 14 ppm _butylated hydroxanisole_ (BHA). The level of oregano essential oil was selected based on prior research studies ([PERSON] et al., 2016 [18]; [PERSON], 2022 [2; 13]). _Origanum syriacum_ L. oil (OR-S) was purchased from a locally certified company that usually extracts the _wild_ type of oregano grown in southern Jordan (Green- Field factory for oils, Amman, Jordan). The chemical composition of the tested oil was analyzed at the institution of the Royal Scientific Society, Amman, Jordan (RSS), using HPLC equipment, and it was found that it contains approximately 73% carvacrol and 18% thymol. _Origanum vulgare_ subsp. _hitrum_ essential oil was purchased from a Turkey-based registered company in the USA (_Healthy-Health, Staten Island, NY, USA;_ organically grown in the western mountainous regions of Turkey), and its HPLC analysis showed that it contains a minimum of 83-86% carvacrol and less than 2% thymol. This variation in carvacrol and thymol contents will unfortunately cause varying antioxidant effectiveness. Both types of oregano essential oil and BHA were dissolved using 10 mL of purified ethanol and then combined with crude gel to prepare their coating solution. The dissolved ethanol was extracted from the gel using a laboratory evaporator (Rotary evaporator system; Heidolph Laborota 4001-efficient) programed to 70 \({}^{\circ}\)C and 175 millibar of vacuum pressure. At the 5% level, all treatment meat batches were mixed with the same quantity of _Aloe vera_ gel. Fresh leaves of _Aloe vera_ were obtained from several local farmers in the southern part of Jordan. _Aloe vera_ gel (_Parenchymatous_ transparent gel) was hand-collected, washed, filtered, and then kept in oxygen-impermeable bags until needed. The stock solution of _Aloe vera_ gel for all treatments was combined with the ground meat in a bowl mixer separately for 4 min. Furthermore, the same quantities of _Aloe_ gel and water were used to prepare each treatment. The raw (thigh) meat batches were formed into small meat patties (100 g each) and packaged using oxygen-permeable plastic bags (Future for Plastic Industry; Al-Moumtaz Bags, Co. Ltd., Amman, Jordan; polyethylene, size: 11 \(\times\) 25 cm) and kept for seven days for color measurement analysis. All meat batches were checked for their proximate composition, acidity, and cooking loss values before the start of the experiment. In the cooked meat part, the formulation was the same as that of the raw meat.