Ageing of large cuts of beef loin in vacuum or high oxygen modified atmosphere – Effect on shear force, calpain activity, desmin degradation and protein oxidation
Introduction
Retail packaging of meat in modified atmosphere (MA) with 70–80% oxygen is used to provide a stable bloomed red meat colour, which is attractive to the consumer. Inclusion of 20–30% carbon dioxide (CO2) prolongs the shelf life by inhibiting bacterial growth (McMillin, 2008). However, high oxygen levels promote lipid oxidation (Jacobsen & Bertelsen, 2000) and high oxygen MA packaging has been reported to reduce tenderness in beef (Clausen et al., 2009, Sørheim et al., 2004, Tørngren, 2003) and pork (Lund, Lametsch, Hviid, Jensen, & Skibsted, 2007), increase protein oxidation and reduce myofibril fragmentation in beef (Clausen et al., 2009), and increase cross-linking of proteins in pork (Lund et al., 2007).
Packaging of fresh beef in high oxygen MA is predominantly used for retail display of smaller cuts such as steaks or minced meat that are packaged directly after cutting or after ageing of whole muscles in vacuum. The Swedish meat industry has raised two questions about beef quality in high oxygen MA packaging. (i) Could whole meat cuts be aged directly in high oxygen MA without prior vacuum packaging to avoid repackaging? (ii) How does the ageing time in vacuum influence meat quality when followed by retail packaging in high oxygen MA? We designed a project to investigate these questions and studied the effect on meat quality of ageing time solely in high oxygen MA or in vacuum followed by high oxygen MA compared with ageing solely in vacuum. The first part of the project is reported in this paper. Large meat cuts (10 cm long) of beef loin were aged in three different ageing systems for up to 25 days postmortem to study the effect on shear force, cooking loss, calpain activity, desmin degradation and protein oxidation. Our results on colour and colour stability will be presented elsewhere.
Section snippets
Animals, sample collection and treatments
Ten young bulls of Swedish Holstein breed were slaughtered on the same day according to standard routines at a commercial slaughterhouse. All animals (age 14–17 months) came from one farm and had the same feeding regime, ad libitum access to silage and barley. All carcasses were electrically stimulated (low voltage, 30 s). The weight of the carcasses ranged from 288 to 315 kg and the EUROP classification varied from O− to O+ and with a EUROP fatness score from 2+ to 3+. The carcasses were hung in
Results
Oxygen did not penetrate throughout the meat aged in high oxygen MA with the sample size of 10 cm of LD used in the present study. This could be seen by the colour differences between the cherry red surface layer of oxymyoglobin (OxyMb) and the purple inside of deoxymyoglobin (DeoxyMb) (Fig. 2). The OxyMb layer was estimated to reach approximately 1.5–2 cm inside the meat and the samples for analysis of calpain, desmin and carbonyls were taken in the zone just inside this OxyMb layer (Fig. 1).
Discussion
All samples for measurements of WB shear force and cooking loss were cooked and measured directly after each ageing time and not stored frozen. This was optimal for studying the effect of the ageing system at the same ageing time since Lagerstedt, Enfält, Johansson, and Lundström (2008) found that WB peak force measurements were lower when samples were frozen before cooking and measurement.
The location along LD where the samples were taken influenced shear force with the lowest value in the
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank The Swedish Farmer’s Foundation for Agricultural Research for their financial support. We also thank Ann-Charlotte Enfält, Agnes Preusse, Julie Stefansen, Carina Gossas and Anna Kovacs for their help with the project.
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