Chapter 5

MEAT PRODUCT
 Principles, Types and Applications
 Ch 5: Meat
 Ch 7: Aquatic
 Enzyme
 Plant is in the primary Food Chain line – food chain with a
linear sequence of links in a food web starting from
a trophic species that eats no other species in the web and
ends at a trophic species that is eaten by no other species
in the web.
 A food chain describes the path of energy and nutrients
from the nonliving parts of the ecosystem, through the
living components, and back to the nonliving environment.
By cycling nutrients, food chains connect the nonliving and
living components.
 In recent years, there has been a decline in consumption
of beef, but saw an increased demand for chicken. There
are many reasons behind these changes including the
consumer concern for safety and health, changes in
demographic characteristics, changes in consumer
lifestyles, availability and convenience, price, and so on.
 The quality perception of beef changes depending on the
country. For example, Americans are concerned with
cholesterol, calorie content, artificial ingredients,
convenience characteristics, and price.
 In the United States, this changing demand has influenced
the other meat markets. Beef has been gradually losing
market share to chicken.
 But a significant percentage of meat is used as raw
material for further processing into different products such
as cooked, fermented, and dry-cured meats. Some of the
most well-known meat products are fermented and dry
fermented sausages.
 STRUCTURE OF MUSCLE
 The structure of muscle is important for the
properties of the muscle, and its changes during
postmortem events influence the quality properties of
the meat.
 Muscle has different colors within the range of white
to red, depending on the proportion of fibers. There
are different classifications for fibers.
 On the basis of color, they can be classed as red,
white, or intermediate (Moody and Cassens 1968):
 (1) red fibers are characterized by a higher content of
myoglobin and higher numbers of capillaries and
mitochondria, and they exhibit oxidative metabolism;
 (2) white fibers containlow amounts of myoglobin and
exhibit glycolytic metabolism; and
 (3) intermediate fibers exhibit intermediate properties.
 The skeletal muscle contains a
great number of fibers. Each
fiber, which is surrounded by
connective tissue, contains
around 1000 myofibrils, all of
them arranged in a parallel way
and responsible for contraction
and relaxation.
 They are embedded in a liquid
known as sarcoplasm, which
contains the sarcoplasmic (water-
soluble) proteins.
 Each myofibril contains clear dark
lines, known as Z-lines, regularly
located along the myofibril.
 MUSCLE COMPOSITION
 Essentially, meat is basically composed of water, protein,
lipids, minerals, and carbohydrates. lean muscle tissue
contains approximately 72–74% moisture, 20–22% protein, 3–5%
fat, 1%ash, and 0.5% of carbohydrate.
 Muscle Proteins
 Proteins constitute the major compounds in the muscle,
approximately 15–22%, and have important roles for the
structure, normal function, and integrity of the muscle.
 Proteins experience important changes during the conversion
of muscle to meat that mainly affect tenderness; and
additional changes occur during further processing, through
the generation of peptides and free amino acids as a result of
the proteolytic enzymatic chain.
 There are three main groups of proteins in the muscle:
 myofibrillar proteins,
 sarcoplasmic proteins, and
 connective tissue proteins.
 Non-protein Compounds
 Free Amino Acids
 Dipeptides
 Muscle and Adipose Tissue Lipids
 A great number of
chemical and
biochemical reactions
take place in living
muscle.
 Some of these reactions
continue, while others
are altered due to
changes in pH, the
presence of inhibitory
compounds, the release
of ions into the
sarcoplasm, and so on
during the early
postmortem time.
 In a few hours, these
reactions are
responsible for the
conversion of muscle to
meat; this process is
basically schematized in
Figure 15.2
 Meat grading constitutes a valuable tool for the
classification of a large number of carcasses into
classes and grades with similar characteristics
such as quality and yield.
 The final purpose is to evaluate specific
characteristics to determine carcass retail value.
In addition, the weight and category of the
carcass are useful for establishing the final price
to be paid to the farmer.
 Carcasses are usually evaluated for
conformation, carcass length, and back-fat
thickness.
 The grading system is, thus, giving information
on quality traits of the carcass that help
producers, processors, retailers, and consumers.
 In the United States, beef carcasses receive a
grade for quality (prime, choice, good, standard,
commercial, utility, and cutter) and a grade for
predicted yield of edible meat (1–5).
 In Europe, beef and lamb carcasses are classified
according to the EUROP scheme. Carcass
classification is based on the conformation
according to profiles, muscle development, and
fat level.
 Each carcass is classified by visual inspection, based
on photos corresponding to each grade (see Fig). The
six conformation classification ratings are S
(superior), E (excellent), U (very good), R (good), O
(fair), and P (poor).
 MUSCLEPROTEINS- the important protein
component of food ingredients.
 The meat of slaughter animals, fish, mollusks,
and crustaceans is predominantly used to
prepare different dishes, a variety of canned,
smoked, marinated, salted, and dried products,
as well as a large number of sausage assortments
and gels.
 In these products the functional properties of the
muscle proteins are responsible for the desirable
sensory attributes.
 The origin of fermented meats is quite far away in time.
Ancient Romans and Greeks already manufactured
fermented sausages, and, in fact, the origin of words like
sausage and salami might have come from the Latin
expressions salsiccia and salumen, respectively (Toldra
2002).
 The production and consumption of fermented meats
expanded throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, being
adapted to climatic conditions (i.e., smoked in Northern
Europe and dried in Mediterranean countries).
 For instance, Northern European-type sausages contain
beef as raw meats, are ripened for short periods (up to 3
weeks), and are usually subjected to smoking. In these
sausages, shelf-life is mainly due to acid pH and smoking
rather than drying.
 On the other hand, Mediterranean sausages are ripened for
longer periods (several weeks or even months), and smoke
is not so typically applied (Flores and Toldra 1993).
 RAW MATERIAL PREPARATION
 There are several considerations that need to be taken into account
when producing fermented meats.
 Quality characteristics such as color, pH (preferably<5.8), and water-
holding capacity are very important.
 Meat from older animals is preferred because of its more intense color,
which is due to the accumulation of myoglobin, a sarcoplasmic protein
that is the natural pigment responsible for color in meat.
 Salt is the oldest additive used in cured meat products since ancient
times. Salt, at about 2–4%, serves several functions, including (1) an
initial reduction in aw, (2) providing a characteristic salty taste, and
(3) contributing to increased solubility of myofibrillar proteins.
 Carbohydrates like glucose and lactose are used quite often as
substrates for microbial growth and development.
 Phosphates may be added to improve stability against oxidation;
vegetable proteins, such as soy isolates, to replace meat proteins; and
manganese sulfate as a cofactor for lactic acid bacteria.
 Spices, either in natural form or as extracts, are added to give a
characteristic aroma or color to the fermented sausage. There are a
wide variety of spices (pepper, paprika, oregano, rosemary, garlic,
onion, etc.), each one giving a particular aroma to the product.
 Chapter 7
AQUATIC PRODUCT
 Seafood is valued for its nutritive components and desirable
sensory attributes.
 However, quality of seafood is vulnerable to rapid degradation if
no appropriate postharvest handling or processing methods are
used.
 It is important to understand the basic biochemical reactions of
the relevant components in seafood in order that their quality
can be best preserved.
 Biochemical changes in glycogen, protein, lipids, and pigments is
an important component that its changes could affect the quality
of seafood.
 Metabolic changes from the activity of enzymes can be used as
indices of freshness and be monitored by biochemical or chemical
methods.
 Three different manufacturing process techniques employed,
 (1) freezing,
 (2) dehydration, and
 (3) thermal
 Glycogen in seafood: Biochemical changes in its
glycogen, which exists in small quantities, initiates
the biochemical process, in the same way that it
occurs in other animal products.
 Nitrogenous compounds in seafood: The
degradation of protein will be discussed, with a
special reference to sarcoplasmic, myofibrillar, and
stromal protein. Such biochemical changes in
seafood’s protein and nonprotein components
usually reduce its economic value and may also
create safety problems.
 Lipids in seafood: Fat can undergo many
biochemical changes, both qualitatively and
quantitatively. Some changes can cause rancidity,
especially during the storage of fatty fish.
 Pigments in seafood: Biochemical changes is due to
epithelial discoloration, hemoglobin, hemocyanin,
myoglobin, carotenoids, and melanosis.
 Macronutrients
 The macronutrients found in seafood include
protein, fats and oils, and water. All other
nutrients found in seafood are considered
micronutrients and are of minor significance.
 Fish contains 63–84% water, 14–24% protein, and
0.5–17% lipid by weight. Fish, like other muscle
sources of protein, have only small amounts of
carbohydrates (as muscle glycogen).
 The primary source of fish protein is muscle, and
the protein quality is comparable to other animal
protein from milk, eggs, and beef.
 The forms of lipid in fish are triglycerides or
triacylglycerols. Triglycerides in pelagic fish
contain the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty
acids (PUFAs), eicosapentoic acid and
docosahexanoic acid (DHA), which have many
health benefits including normal development of
the brain and retina in infants and prevention of
heart diseases in adults.
 In general, processing does not change the nutrient content of fish.
Drying and smoking fish reduces the water content. The process also
reduce the lipid content if extremely high temperatures are used.
 Drying also increases the concentration of all nutrients on a weight
basis. Sodium nitrite (usually with sodium nitrate) that is added during
the process of drying or smoking increases the content of sodium
considerably. The salmon flesh used for smoking is lower in lipids than
whole salmon.
 Surimi
 Surimi is originally a Japanese product obtained by washing
crushed fish flesh several times with fresh water. This
treatment removes most of the sarcoplasmic proteins,
including enzymes and pigments, non protein nitrogenous
compounds, various odorous substances, other soluble
components, and fat.
 The remaining myofibrillar proteins have higher gel-forming
ability than the original protein mixture.
 Nowadays, fish surimi is produced mainly onboard vessels. The
typical commercial surimi is made from Alaska Pollock.
 In order to prevent deterioration of its functional properties
during frozen storage, different cryoprotectants (eg.
Saccharides), are added prior to freezing (Figure 6.6).
 Surimi is used mainly for manufacturing traditional Japanese
gelled products, obtained by mixing it with salt, grinding,
forming, and steaming or broil-cooking (kamaboko) or frying
(tempura).
 Fish Sauce/ Budu
 Fish sauces belong to a group of traditional fermented
products typical in Southeast Asia.
 They are manufactured by salting different small fish, mainly
Stolephorus spp, Ristelliger spp., Sardinella spp., Engraulis
spp., Clupea spp., Scomber colias, and Decapterus
spp.,according to a variety of recipes.
 In various recipes, the fish-to-salt proportions range from 1 to
6 and the fermentation time, usually at ambient temperature,
from about 2 to 18 months.
 Endogenous and bacterial enzymes are involved in developing
the typical flavor of the sauces. The undiluted filtrate of the
autolysate is regarded as first-grade fish sauce; the brine
extract of the nonhydrolyzed residue is of lower sensory
quality and nutritional value.
 Various proteolytic enzymes from animal, plant, and microbial
sources added in the process can increase the rate of
proteolysis and even improve the quality of the products.
 Biological/ Cultures Products
 Enzymes are biological molecules that enable
biological reactions proceed at perceptible rates in
living organisms (plants, animals, and
microorganisms) including products derived from
these sources.
 Living organisms produce basically similar functional
classes of enzymes to enable them carry out similar
metabolic processes in their cells and tissues.
 We can expect that foodstuffs would also possess
endogenous enzymes to catalyze biological reactions
that occur in them both pre- and postharvest.
 The molecules that enzymes act upon are called
substrates, while the resulting compounds from the
enzymatic conversions are called products.
 Rationale for Interest in Food Starter Culture
 Enzymes have several advantages for food use
compared to conventional chemical catalysts.
 Relatively more selective and specific in their choice
and action on substrates, thus limits any side
reactions that could lead to the formation of
undesirable co-products in the finished products.
 Posses higher efficiency and can conduct reactions
several times faster than other catalysts.
 Active in low concentrations and perform well under
relatively mild reaction conditions (e.g., temperature
and pH); the use in food processing helps to preserve
the integrity of heat-labile essential nutrients.
 Enzyme can also be immobilized onto stationary
support materials to permit their reuse and thereby
reduce processing costs.
 Most enzyme are quite heat labile; it can be readily
inactivated by mild heat treatments after they have been used
to achieve the desired transformation in foods, and they are
natural and relatively harmless components of agricultural
materials and considered “safe” for food and other nonfood
uses (e.g., drugs and cosmetics).
 Their action on food components other than their substrates
are negligible, and more gentle, thus resulting in the formation
of purer products with more consistent properties; more
environmentally friendly and produce less residuals (or
processing waste that must be disposed of at high costs)
compared to traditional chemical catalysts.
 Because of these beneficial effects, enzymes are used in the
food industry for a various applications including: baking and
milling, production of (both alcoholic and nonalcoholic
beverages), cheese and other dairy products manufacture,
manufacture of eggs and egg products, fish and fish products,
meats and meat products, cereal and cereal products, and in
confectionaries.
 Industrial enzymes have traditionally been
derived from plant, animal, and microbial
sources (Table 9.1).
 Examples of plant enzymes include α-amylase, β-
amylase, bromelain, β-glucanase, ficin, papain,
and chymopapain;
 Examples of animal enzymes are trypsins,
pepsins, chymotrypsins, catalase, pancreatic
amylase, pancreatic lipase, and rennet;
 Examples of microbial enzymes are α-amylase,β-
amylase, glucose isomerase, pullulanase,
cellulase, catalase, lactase, pectinases, pectin
lyase, invertase, raffinose, microbial lipases, and
proteases.
 Some Applications of Lipases – Dairy Products
 Lipases occur naturally in milk (cow, goat, sheep, sow, donkey, horse,
camel, and humans). The natural role of lipases in mammalian milks is
to aid digestion for the young suckling.
 In dairy products, lipases was important for flavor development: for
example, “membrane” lipases can produce undesirable rancidity in
freshly drawn milks.
 In processed milk and milk products, this may not be expected to pose
a problem due to the high pH range for milk lipase activity (pH6–9),
the low thermal stability of the lipases, and their inability to survive
pasteurization treatments.
 In some dairy products, post-process lipolysis is desirable to produce
the flavors normally associated with such products, such as butterfat,
cheddar cheese, blue cheese, and Roquefort cheese. In these
products, supplementation with microbial lipases is done to facilitate
the ripening process.
 During “ripening,” the added lipases break down milk fat into free
fatty acids. Different types of lipases con-tribute to distinctive flavors.
In this regard, lipases that release short-chain fatty acids (i.e., C4–C6)
produce “sharp” flavors in food products, while the lipases furnishing
long-chain fatty acid (>C12) tend to elicit more subtle tastes.
 Enzymes from plants, animals, and microorganisms have
been used since time immemorial to modify foodstuffs.
 Examples of the food enzymes of plant origin include
papain, bromelain, and ficin; examples of animal enzymes
include rennets, pepsins, trypsins, chymotrypsins,
pancreatic lipases, lysozyme, and cathepsins; and
examples ofmicrobial enzymes are various amy-lases,
cellulases, proteases, lipases, glucose and isomerase
derived from selected bacteria, yeasts, and fungi.
 The uses of these enzymes in foods result in desirable
changes with respect to improvements in appearance,
consistency, flavor, solubility, texture, and yield, among
others.
 In this regard, enzymes have been used as processing aids
in the manufacture of various baked goods, dairy products,
meats and fish products, beverages (alcoholic and
nonalcoholic), etc. (Table 9.2).
 Baked Goods
 Baked goods are prepared from flours such as wheat
flour, which has starch as its main constituent.
Amylolytic enzymes break down flour starch into
small dextrins that become better substrates for
yeast to act upon in the bread-making process.
 The use of enzymes in the baking industry is
expanding to replace the use of chemicals in making
high-quality products, in terms of better dough
handling, anti-staling properties, as well as texture,
color, taste, and volume. For example, enzymes like
lipase are used in baked goods to strengthen dough
texture and enhance elasticity in place of chemicals
such as potassium bromate and ascorbate.
 Dairy Products
 The formulation of dairy products entails the use
of several enzymes, such as proteases (e.g.,
microbial rennets or their homologs from calf
and other ruminants), lipases, and lactases.
 The proteases are used to precipitate milk
caseins as “clots” or “curds” during cheese-
making; the proteases and lipases also promote
flavor development during ripening of cheese and
in products like coffee whiteners, snack foods,
soups, and spreads (margarines); while lactases
are used to produce lactose-free milk and dairy
products for the benefit of individuals that are
lactose-intolerant.
 Meat and Fish Products
 Meat Tenderization
 Tenderness in meats relates to the ease of these products to
chomping or chewing. Meat tenderness arises from
modifications in muscle proteins and entails breakdown of
connective tissue proteins by proteases.
 These hydrolytic enzymes may be naturally present in the
post-mortem animal (e.g., cathepsins) or they may be added
exogenously. In some meats, the action of the endogenous
enzymes may be inadequate to achieve tenderization within a
time period that is useful.
 Exogenous enzymes that are used for household or commercial
purposes include thermostable proteases from microbial and
plant sources.
 Some peculiar features of these proteases used as meat
tenderizers include their broader specificity and
thermostability. Examples are papain, ficin, and bromelain (all
from plant sources).
 Fish Processing
 Enzymes are used in the fishing industry to
achieve a variety of results such as their use in
de-skinning fish species that are normally
difficult to de-skin by manual or mechanical
operations (e.g., squid, skate, and tuna).
 De-skinning is achieved using a mixture of
proteolytic and glycolytic enzymes.
 Heat-stable fungal and plant proteases are also
used to accelerate fish sauce fermentation, and
proteases are also used to enhance flavor
development during the preparation of
fermented herring and to tenderize squid meat
 Enzymes in Beverages
 A number of enzymes are used in the manufacture of alcoholic
and nonalcoholic beverages. Enzymes such as heat-stable
bacterial amylases, glucanases, and pullanases are used to
liquefy starches from cereals during mashing to increase
fermentable sugar levels in the wort. Heat-stable bacterial
phytases are used to break down insoluble phytins into phytic
acid, which is more soluble and lowers the pH for improved
microbial and enzymatic activity in the fermentation medium.
 Various proteases are used to digest large-molecular weight
and water-insoluble proteins (e.g., albumins and globulins)
into smaller and soluble peptides in order to curtail haze
formation in the products.
 The enzymes that are used to facilitate the processing of fruits
and vegetables into juices include a range of pectinases for
peeling the fruits, maceration, removal of pectins, viscosity
reduction, and clarification of the juice); amylases are applied
for breaking down starches in high starch-containing fruits
(e.g., unripe apples, bananas) to prevent post-product haze
develop-ment in the products;
 Enzymes in Candies and Confectioneries
 Various hydrolytic enzymes are used as processing
aids for the manufacture of chocolate-covered soft
cream candies, e.g., amylases and invertase, and for
the recovery of sugars from candy scraps, e.g.,
amylases, invertase, and proteases.
 A mixture of cellulases, invertase, pectinases, and
proteases are used in making candied fruits.
 Amylases are also used to produce high-maltose and
high-glucose syrups for use as sweetener in the
manufacture of hard candies, soft drinks, and
caramels.
 Lipases are used to modify butterfat to increase
buttery flavors in candies and caramels and to reduce
sweetness as well.
 Foodstuffs have naturally present enzymes as well as
intentionally added ones that produce significant effects on food-
processing operations. The actions of these enzymes may
improve food quality or promote food quality deterioration.
 The use of enzymes as food-processing aids has increased steadily
for several years now, and this trend is expected to continue for
the foreseeable future due to the interest and need for more
effective strategies and greener technologies to curtail the
reliance on existing technologies and protect the environment.
 The factors that augur well for the expanded use of enzymes as
food-processing aids include: consumer preferences for their use
instead of chemicals, their use as food-processing aids is
perceived to be more innocuous and more environmental
friendly, their capacity to selectively and specifically remove
toxic components in foods (e.g., glucosinolates with sulfatases,
acrylamide with asparaginase, or phytates with phytases), and
recent advances in enzyme engineering, which is permitting the
discovery and design of new and superior enzymes tailored to suit
specific applications.