Food Technology

FDE 405

Sinan Uzunlu, PhD

ALKU Engineering Faculty
Food Engineering Department
Room: 125/120

Lecture 7 – 08 December 2023

Meat Science
and
Technology
Meat as a Food
• Eating is a process essential to maintain the life.
• Meat satisfy hunger and appetite
• The pleasure is derived by consuming;
• - Sizzling steak
• - Spicy sausages
• - Crisp fried chicken
• - Juicy lobster tail and etc..
What is meat?
• Meat is defined as those animal tissues that are suitable for use as
food sources.
• Tissues from nearly every species of animals are used as meat.
• However, mostly consumed meat sources are provided from domestic
animals and aquatic organisms.
Classification of meat types
• Red meats: beef, pork, lamb, veal, horse, goat, camel, water buffalo,
rabbit.
• Poultry meats: domestic birds, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, etc..
• Sea foods: fish, clams, lobster, oyster, crab, etc..
What is meat science?
• A broad field of study is known as meat science
• Study of unique characteristics of muscle and other animal tissues
• Meat science begins with animal production and ends with meat
consumption.
Structure and composition of animal tissues
• The animal carcass: is the product of the slaughtering process, which
removes blood, viscera, head, hair, skin and other tissues from a living
animal.
• It is composed primarily of muscle, variable quantities of connective
tissues, and some epithelial and nervous tissues.
• 3 primary components of the carcass: muscle, bone and fat each
contain multiple tissues.
Muscle tissue
• Skeletal, smooth, cardiac muscles are present.
• There are more than 600 muscles in the animal body.
• Skeletal muscle fiber: structural unit of skeletal muscle tissue is the
highly specialized cell known as a muscle fiber, myofiber or muscle
cell.
• Muscle fibers constitute 75 to 92 percent of total muscle volume.
• Muscle fibers range from 10 to more than 100 µm in diameter.
Sarcolemma
• The membrane surrounding a muscle fiber is called the sarcolemma.
• Is composed of protein and lipid
• Enables it to endure great distortion during contraction, relaxation
and stretching.
Myofibrils
• Is an organelle unique to muscle tissue, as implied by the prefix.
• Long, thin rods, usually measuring 1 to 2 µm in diameter.
• Have a highly organized array of dots that have two distinct size
(Fig.2.9).
• These dots represent the two types of myofilaments within myofibrils.
• Are commonly referred to as thick and thin filaments of the myofibril.
• Areas of different density are visible within light and dark bands of
myofibrils.
Myofibrils
• The light band is singly refractive when viewed with polarized light, is
described as being isotropic and is called the I band.
• The broad dark band is doubly refractive, or anisotropic in polarized
light, and is designated the A band.
• The I band is bisected by a dark thin band called the Z disk.
• The unit of the myofibril spanning two adjacent Z disks is referred to
as a sarcomere.
Myofibrils
• The sarcomere includes both an A band and the two half I bands
located on either side of the A band.
• The sarcomere is the repeating structural unit of the myofibril, and it
is also the basic unit where muscle contraction and relaxation occur.
Myofilaments
• Thick and thin filaments of the myofibril differ in chemical
composition, dimension, properties and position within the
sarcomere.
• Predominant protein in thick filaments is myosin, referred to as
myosin filaments.
• Actin, is the most abundant protein in the thin filament, referred to as
actin filaments.
• Fig. 2.10
Proteins of the myofibril
• There’re more than 20 different proteins associated with the
myofibril.
• Six of these proteins account for approx. 90% of the total myofibrillar
protein.
• In decreasing order; myosin, actin, titin, tropomyosin, troponin,
nebulin.
• Myofibrillar proteins are classified by their function as; contractile,
regulatory, cytoskeletal.
Proteins of the myofibril
• Actin and myosin are the major contractile proteins.
• Tropomyosin and troponin are the majör regulatory proteins.
• Role of the regulatory proteins are to regulate actin-myosin
interactions during muscle contraction.
Connective tissue
• Connects and holds various parts of the body together.
• Serves as a barrier against infective agents (e.g. Wound healing).
• Collagen is the most abundant protein in the animal body and
significantly influences meat tenderness.
• Glycine is the most abundant amino acid in collagen, and comprises
approx. One-third of the total amino acids.
Muscle organization
• Muscle Fiber Types: Muscles are usually classified as red or White,
attributed to the proportion of red and White fibers they contain.
• Few muscles are composed solely of red or White fibers, but rather
most contain a mixture of red and White fibers.
• Most muscles of meat animals contain a higher proportion of White
fibers than red fibers, even in muscles that are visibly red.
Muscle fibers
• Are classified based on their inherent ATPase activity, which is
indicative of the predominant myosin isoform of the cell.
• A protein isoform simply refers to a protein that is closely related in
structure and function to other proteins in the same family.
• Myosin, has four isoforms; type I, IIA, IIX(D), IIB.
• Type I and IIA are red muscle fibers
• Type IIX(D) and IIB are White muscle fibers.
Muscle fibers
• Show different contraction times in speed when stimulated.
• All muscles contract rapidly, but differences between fast and slow
contracting fibers exist, albeit only by fractions of a second.
• Type I fibers are slower contracting fibers, where as type II are fast.
Muscle fibers
• The higher myoglobin content of red fibers, as compared to White
fibers, accounts for their red colour.
• Oxygen storage by myoglobin is consistent with the high proportion of
enzymes involved in oxidative metabolism (requires oxygen for energy
production) and the low levels of glycolytic enzymes found in red
fibers.
Chemical composition of the animal body
• Animal body contains normally about one third of the approx. 100
chemical elements.
• About 20 of these are essential to life.
• O, C, H, N account for approx. 96% of total body chem.composition.
• Carcass Composition: proportions of muscle, fat and bone are of
greatest importance.
• When percentage of carcass fat increases, both the percentage of
muscle and bone plus tendon decrease.
The mechanism of muscle contraction
• In the living body, muscle is a highly specialized tissue capable of
converting chamical energy into mechanical energy primarily as a
means for locomotion.
• It becomes a highly nutritious and palatable food when converted to
meat after the harvest of an animal.
• Overall structure of muscle is designed for contraction and relaxation,
which leads to movement and locomotion.
• This ability to contract and relax is lost during the transformation of
muscle to meat.
• Subsequent loss of these abilities (contraction & relaxation),
dramatically affect the palatability of meat.
• The biochemical processes that provide energy for muscle function in
living animals are similar to those processes that cause an
accumulation of metabolites and subsequent loss of water-holding
capacity during the postmortem period.
Contraction of skeletal muscle
• Involves four myofibrillar proteins: actin, myosin, tropomyosin,
troponin.
• Tropomyosin and troponin play the role of regulatory proteins and
assist in turning the contractile process «on» and «off» depending on
the concentration of calcium ions present in the sarcoplasm of the
fiber.
• Free calcium ion concentrations should be 10-6 or 10-5 moles/liter to
initiate a contraction.
• Muscle contraction requires energy in addition to that normally
consumed by the resting muscle.
• This energy is derived from ATP.
• The enzyme responsible for hydrolyzing ATP into adenosine
diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate is called myosin ATPase.
• When an animal is slaughtered, the muscle does not instantaneously
stop living and become meat.
• In fact, replenishment of ATP continiues to provide energy for all of
the above muscle functions for some time after the initiation of the
harvesting process.
• Pathways that provide for ATP synthesis by rephosphorylation
(convertion of ADP to ATP) in the living muscle attempt to maintain
ATP levels after death.
Conversion of muscle to meat and
development of meat quality
• Muscle does not suddenly terminate all their living functions and
become meat.
• Instead, a number of physical and chemical changes occur over a
period of several hours or even days after slaughter.
• Homeostasis: most organs in the body, including muscle, function
efficiently only within a narrow range of physiological conditions (pH,
temp., O2 concentr., energy supply). Maintenace of this well-
orchestrated physiological state is termed homeostasis.
• Homeostatic regulation gives an organism the ability to survive under
many different, sometimes adverse, environmental conditions.
• Homeostasis is maintained by the nervous and endocrine systems.
• Conditions immediately prior to slaughter may alter postmortem
changes and affect meat quality.
• This includes animal transportation, handling and holding prior to
harvesting.
Immobilization and exanguination
• The first step of the harvesting (slaughtering) process is to immobilize
animals, that is, to render them unconscious.
• In most developed countries, laws require humane immobilization
methods that minimize animal distress and tissue damage.
• In the US, captive bolt stunning is used for cattle, calves, and sheep;
electrical stunning for calves, sheep, swine, poultry, and fish; and
carbon dioxide immobilization for swine.
• Animals slaughtered for kosher and halal markets are not
immobilized.
• Removal of blood is known as exsanguination and marks the
beginning of a series of postmortem changes in the muscles.
• As soon as the homeostatic control mechanisms perceive a drop in
blood pressure, the heart begins pumping faster and peripheral
vessels to maintain pressure and force blood to the vital organs.
• As a result, only about 50% of total blood can be removed from the
body.
• Blood is an excellent medium for growth of spoilage organisms and
excess blood in meat cuts is unappealing to the consumer.
Muscle pH decline
• Lactic acid, produced by anaerobic metabolism in the living animal is
transported from the muscles to the liver, where it is re-synthesized
into glucose and glycogen, or to the heart, where it is metabolized to
carbon dioxide and water.
• Since the circulatory system is no longer capable of removing
metabolites from the tissues of exsanguinated animals, lactic acid
remains in the muscle and increases in concentration during the
postmortem period.
• It continiues to accumulate until the glycogen stored in the muscle is
depleted.
Muscle pH decline
• Lowering of muscle pH due to the accumulation of lactic acid is one of
the most significant postmortem changes.
• The rate and extent of muscle pH decline after an animal has been
exsanguinated are highly variable.
• A normal pH decline in porcine muscle by a gradual decrease from pH
7.4 in living muscle to a pH of about 5.6 within 6 to 8 hours of
postmortem, and then to an ultimate pH of about 5.3 to 5.7.
• In some animals, the pH drops only slightly during the first hour after
slaughtering and then remains stable at a relatively high level, giving
an ultimate pH 6.5 to 6.8.
• In other animals, muscle pH drops rapidly to around 5.4 to 5.5 during
the first hour after exsanguination. Ultimate pH develops at pH 5.3-
5.6.
• Fig 5.1 p 85
Properties of fresh meat
• Defines the chemical and physical changes following slaughter
• * water-holding capacity
• * colour
• * structure & texture
• * firmness
Meat quality
• Meat must please the eye as well as the palate of the consumer.

Of raw meat Of cooked meat

• - colour - tenderness
• - texture - juiciness
• - firmness - flavour
Water-holding capacity
• The ability of meat to retain naturally occurring or additional water
during several external force applications
• - cutting
• - heating
• - grinding
• - pressing
• Water holding capacity affects physical attributes (colour, texture,
firmness, juiciness, tenderness) of meat.
Water-holding capacity
• Loss of moisture & weight during storage is called as shrinkage.
• When fresh meat is packed in bags, the moisture is captured in the
bag due to drip loss.
• The accumulated moisture is known as purge and it is quite evident
when the bag is opened.
Chemical basis of water-holding capacity
• Water presence in three forms in meat;
• - as bound (4 to 5% of total water in muscle): it remains tightly bound
even at mechanical applications.
• - as immobilized: bound with proteins.
• - as free water: held only by weak surface forces.
• The water associate with electrically charged reactive groups of
muscle proteins.
• There are several factors which affects the number of reactive groups
on muscle proteins and their availability for binding water.
Net charge effect
• Formation of lactic acid and the result of drop in pH levels during post-
mortem period are responsible for an overall reduction of reactive
groups on proteins, where normally available for water binding.
• Reduction in numbers of reactive groups occurs, because pH approaches
the isoelectric point of myofibrillar proteins. That pH at which the
number of positively and negatively charged groups is equal.
• Consequently these groups tend to be attracted to each other, and only
those «left over» are available to attract water.
• This influence of pH is called as the «net charge effect».
Kasaplık hayvanların et verimi
Sığır Kuzu Domuz
Sınıf Ağırlık (kg) Ağırlık (kg) Ağırlık (kg)
Canlı ağırlık 455 45 115
Perakende et 190 16 67
Yan ürünler (deri, 121 14 26
yenebilir yağlar, çeşitli
etler, kan)
Yenilmeyen yağlar, kemik 80 10 9
ve et döküntüleri
Sayılmayan parçalar 64 5 13
(mide-karın içeriği vb.)