Comparison of beef quality influenced by freeze-thawing among different beef cuts having different muscle fiber characteristics
Introduction
Individual skeletal muscles at different regions of an animal body have their own connatural physiological function (McDonald, Wolff, & Moss, 1997; Pette & Staron, 2001). The quality of meat from skeletal muscles after slaughter of animal is characterized by morphological, biological, and biochemical properties that are associated with physiological functions of muscles (Kim, Yang, & Jeong, 2018; Konhilas, Irving, & de Tombe, 2002; Fidel Toldrá, 2017). In other words, physicochemical properties including approximate composition, pH, color, water-holding capacity, tenderness, and sensory properties are different depending on meat cuts. Many studies have been conducted on different meat qualities of various meat cuts from different species (Araújo et al., 2020; Kim et al., 2019; Roseland et al., 2015; Seiquer et al., 2019). Muscle fiber characteristics (MFC) are representative traits for predicting and/or determining fresh meat quality. They have been investigated for various types of meat (Astruc & Vénien, 2017; Choi & Kim, 2009; Ebarb et al., 2017; Jeong et al., 2010; Ryu & Kim, 2006; Song, Ahn, & Kim, 2020). Besides MFC, other inherent characteristics such as morphological (especially microstructure) and biochemical (especially proteome) properties have been dealt with in meat science field (Hughes, Oiseth, Purslow, & Warner, 2014; Kim et al., 2018; Joseph, Nair, & Suman, 2015; Silva et al., 2019). Although many studies have been conducted previously, most studies have been focused on fresh or aged meat quality. Unlike fresh or aged meat, frozen or freeze-thawed meat has not been thoroughly studied regarding its connatural properties that can affect the meat quality due to freezing.
Freezing is a widely accepted method for preserving meat for a long period by delaying the rate of microbial growth and meat quality deterioration (Leygonie, Britz, & Hoffman, 2012). However, during the freezing process, ice crystals are formed between and inside muscle fibers. They might cause physical damage to the microstructure of meat such as Z-line fractures, weaken the I-band, and increase the gap between muscle fibers (Añón & Cavelo, 1980; Setyabrata & Kim, 2019; Zhang, Li, Diao, Kong, & Xia, 2017). In addition, quality defects are commonly observed after thawing frozen meat, including increased purge/drip loss, darkening of meat color, and reduced oxidative stability (Coombs, Holman, Friend, & Hopkins, 2017; Leygonie et al., 2012). Although the effect of freezing on meat quality has been fully established, the association of changes in meat quality by freeze-thawing with MFC remains unclear.
Therefore, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between MFC and beef quality of four different beef cuts (loin, tenderloin, top round, and eye of round) having fundamentally different biological properties after freeze-thawing.
Section snippets
Sample preparation
Beef loin (M. longissimus thoracis from 10th to 13th thoracic vertebrae; LT), tenderloin (M. psoas major; PM), top round (M. semimembranosus; SM), and eye of round (M. semitendinosus; ST) were removed from the left side of Hanwoo (Korean native cattle) carcasses (n = 10; 417.1 ± 3.8 kg of weight; steer) at 24 h postmortem at a commercial slaughter house. All muscles were cut into approximately 2.5-cm-thickness pieces after removing both sides (2.5-cm-thickness) of each muscle. For
Comparison of proximate composition among different beef cuts
Proximate compositions including moisture, crude fat, crude protein, and crude ash contents are shown in Table 1. Different beef cuts showed significant differences in moisture and fat contents (P < .05). However, different beef cuts had similar crude protein and crude ash contents (P > .05). Moisture content of loin or tenderloin was significantly lower than that of top round (P < .05), but similar to that of eye of round (P > .05). Crude fat content in loin or tenderloin was significantly
Discussion
Proximate composition showed a similar tendency to previous reports which demonstrated higher fat content in loin (or rib eye) and tenderloin than in round cuts (top round or eye of round) (Acheson et al., 2015; Hwang, Kim, Jeong, Hur, & Joo, 2010; Kim et al., 2016). Contrary to the results of fat content, moisture contents were lower in loin and tenderloin than in round cuts because of a negative correlation between fat and moisture contents as reported previously (Savell, Cross, & Smith, 1986
Conclusions
According to the inherent characteristics of each beef muscle (cut), four beef cuts had different moisture and fat contents and meat quality. Freeze-thawing affected beef quality traits, especially meat color, water-holding capacity, and tenderness. However, these four types of beef having different MFC were influenced by freeze-thawing differently. Tenderloin was relatively stable for freeze-thawing, whereas top round which had lower composition of muscle fiber type I was the most susceptible
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors of the present work declare no conflict of interests.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by Korea government (MSIT) (NRF-2019R1C1C1011056).
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These authors contributed equally to this work.