Tenderness is the most critical eating quality trait of meat, and consequently, processing interventions for meat tenderisation have significant economic relevance. The objective of this study was to investigate pulsed electric field (PEF) conditions for the tenderisation of beef topside. The PEF settings included combinations of three field strengths (0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMeat quality can be affected by stress, exhaustion, feed composition, and other physical and environmental conditions. These stressors can alter the pH in postmortem muscle, leading to high pH and low-quality dark cutting (DC) beef, resulting in considerable economic loss. Moreover, the dark cutting prediction may equally provide a measure for animal welfare since it is directly related to animal stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe red meat supply chain is a complex network transferring product from producers to consumers in a safe and secure way. There can be times when fragmentation can arise within the supply chain, which could be exploited. This risk needs reduction so that meat products enter the market with the desired attributes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompr Rev Food Sci Food Saf
January 2021
High-pressure processing (HPP) has been the most adopted nonthermal processing technology in the food industry with a current ever-growing implementation, and meat products represent about a quarter of the HPP foods. The intensive research conducted in the last decades has described the molecular impacts of HPP on microorganisms and endogenous meat components such as structural proteins, enzyme activities, myoglobin and meat color chemistry, and lipids, resulting in the characterization of the mechanisms responsible for most of the texture, color, and oxidative changes observed when meat is submitted to HPP. These molecular mechanisms with major effect on the safety and quality of muscle foods are comprehensively reviewed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConsumers are the final step in the meat supply chain and meeting consumer expectations of quality and tenderness are important for satisfaction and repeat purchase. High pressure processing, shockwaves, ultrasound, pulsed electric field and muscle stretching can be applied to pre- and post-rigor meat for tenderisation. These non-thermal and thermal innovative technologies can be used with varying levels of success to cause physical disruption to muscle structure, enhanced proteolysis and ageing and muscle protein denaturation and solubilisation resulting in changes to texture and juiciness.
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