Improving Cull Cow Meat Quality Using Vacuum Impregnation

Post-Harvest Strategies to Improve Tenderness of Underutilized Mature Beef: A Review

Beef muscles from mature cows and bulls, especially those originating from the extremities of the carcass, are considered as underutilized due to unsatisfactory palatability. However, beef from culled animals comprises a substantial proportion of the total slaughter in the US and globally. Modern consumers typically favor cuts suitable for fast, dry-heat cookery, thereby creating challenges for the industry to market inherently tough muscles. In general, cull cow beef would be categorized as having a lower extent of postmortem proteolysis compared to youthful carcasses, coupled with a high amount of background toughness. The extent of cross-linking and resulting insolubility of intramuscular connective tissues typically serves as the limiting factor for tenderness development of mature beef. Thus, numerous post-harvest strategies have been developed to improve the quality and palatability attributes, often aimed at overcoming deficiencies in tenderness through enhancing the degradation of myofibrillar and stromal proteins or physically disrupting the tissue structure. The aim of this review is to highlight existing and recent innovations in the field that have been demonstrated as effective to enhance the tenderness and palatability traits of mature beef during the chilling and postmortem aging processes, as well as the use of physical interventions and enhancement.

Vacuum Impregnation Process Optimization for Tilapia with Biopreservatives at Ice Temperature

The vacuum impregnation (VI) process was used to pretreat tilapia fillets with biopreservatives at −2 °C. Response surface methodology (RSM) was utilised to optimize processing conditions, including vacuum pressure (p_v), vacuum maintenance time (t₁), and atmospheric pressure recovery time (t₂), which were determined to be 67.73 kPa, 23.66 min, and 8.87 min, respectively. The anticipated values for the aerobic plate count (APC), total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N), and comprehensive score (CS) were 5.17 lg CFU/g, 14.04 mg/100 g, and 0.98, respectively. Verification experiments were conducted, and the experimental results for APC and TVB-N deviated from the predicted values by 0.19% and 0.64%, respectively. After 30 days of storage following VI and atmosphere impregnation (AI) pretreatment, the water-holding capacity (WHC), APC, TVB-N, hardness, and whiteness were determined. On the 30th day, the results for VI pretreatment were 63.38%, 6.27 lg CFU/g, 17.41 mg/100 g, 3.11 N, and 47.73, respectively. Compared with AI pretreatment, WHC, hardness, and whiteness increased by 14.8%, 18.6%, and 6.3%, respectively, whereas APC and TVB-N decreased by 11.3% and 29.6%, respectively. This study demonstrates that when biopreservatives are applied during the pretreatment process, VI technology can be utilised to facilitate their penetration into the interior of tilapia, hence significantly enhancing the effect of ice-temperature preservation.

Influence of fat content and water activity on the heating pattern of model systems submitted to microwave heating

This research analyzed the influence of fat content (1%, 3%, 5%, and 10%, w.b.) and of water activity (0.85, 0.90, 0.95, and 0.99) on the effectiveness of microwave heating within model systems (agar gel). Findings indicate that an increased fat content promotes more uniform heating in the model systems and results in longer heating times to reach the target temperature of 50°C. In the model systems with different a_w values, the warming of the central model zone was slower while in the corners, heating was accelerated. Additionally, in these models, heating times increased as the a_w was decreased. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: The study of model systems allows for a detailed assessment of food when subjected to microwaves; and how heating is influenced by food properties such as a_w and fat content. Findings indicate that changes in product formulation could improve the heating of ready-to-eat foods, either by increasing the fat content (better uniformity) or having high a_w (shorter heating time).

Effect of ultrasonication and vacuum impregnation pretreatments on the quality of beef marinated in onion juice a natural meat tenderizer

This study aimed to determine the effect of ultrasonication (US) and vacuum impregnation (VI) pretreatment techniques applied for the improvement of tenderness on the quality of beef (Longissimus dorsi) traditionally marinated (TM) in onion juice by immersion. TM conditions were 1:5 meat to marinade ratio, final NaCl concentration of 9% (w/v), 4.3 °C and 24 h. US and VI pretreatments significantly (P < 0.05) improved the marinade uptake, but did not alter the lightness (L*) values of beef samples compared to TM. US for 60 min and VI for 40 min pretreatments reduced the hardness of beef by 28.25 and 21.62%, respectively, compared to TM. US and VI pretreatments significantly (P < 0.05) reduced tyramine levels of uncooked and marinated beef samples. Marination in onion juice was found to reduce the lipid oxidation level of beef and increase the general liking score in the sensorial evaluation. Onion juice can be used as a natural marinade for the traditional marination of beef with the help of ultrasonication and vacuum impregnation pretreatments.

Application of ultrasound-assisted vacuum impregnation for improving the diffusion of salt in beef cubes

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different vacuum impregnation (VI) conditions (Control, VI-250, VI-500, VI-750, US-VI-250, US-VI-500 and US-VI-750) on the salt gain (SG) and water gain (WG) kinetics of beef cubes. The cubes were immersed in brine solution (4 g NaCl/ 100 g solution) and salted at different levels of vacuum (250, 500 and 750 mbar) using VI method with and without ultrasound. The final moisture and salt contents of the cubes were 78.60% and 1.59%, respectively, and the samples were salted the fastest with US-VI-250. Five kinetic models were selected to evaluate the SG and WG kinetics, and Azuara model exhibited the best fit. In addition, the salt (D_s) and moisture (D_w) diffusion coefficients were in the range of 5.94-8.11 × 10^-9 m²/s and 5.17-8.64 × 10^-9 m²/s, respectively. It can be concluded that the ultrasound-assisted VI could shorten the brining time by improving the salt diffusion in beef cubes.

Quality and Safety of Meat Products

Food safety is a major problem around the world, both regarding human suffering and with respect to economic costs. Scientific advances have increased our knowledge surrounding the nutritional characteristics of foods and their effects on health. This means that a large proportion of consumers are much more conscious with respect to what they eat and their demands for quality food. Food quality is a complex term that includes, in addition to safety, other intrinsic characteristics, such as appearance, color, texture and flavor, and also extrinsic characteristics, such as perception or involvement.