141
The quandaries of measuring meat quality
Meat quality is an ambiguous term, and its definition may include some component of eating quality (fresh meat appearance and palatability), shelf-life (color stability and palatability retention), wholesomeness (microbiological safety), nutritional composition (lean-to-fat ratio, calories, nutrient content and availability, etc.), and convenience (method and ease of preparation). It seems, however, that measuring meat quality varies as widely as its definition, and there remains considerable inter-institution variation among meat quality sampling and measurement. There are standardized sensory panel training protocols and shear force procedures when measuring cooked meat palatability, but academia, meat industries, and consumers use a variety of cookery methods based on cost, familiarity, facilities, tradition, and science. Water-holding capacity (WHC), an economically relevant meat quality attribute, can be measured using drip-tubes, any variant of the suspension method, Carver-press, or centrifugation. Visual color of fresh meats impacts consumer purchasing decisions, but how many researchers screened potential visual color panelists for their ability to discriminate color differences using the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue test? Furthermore, instrumental meat color is typically measured using 1 of 2 colorimeters, but choice of illuminant/light source, aperture size, and number of readings/sample can impact color data collection and the relationship between visual and instrumental color measurements. Additionally, iodine value has become a valued measure of pork fat quality; yet, the choice of sampling site on a carcass varies among pork companies and research groups, and the available information indicates that the fatty acid compositions of the various fat depots, as well as fat layers within a specific depot, are not always closely correlated. In conclusion, the choice of any meat quality measurement should be based on: 1) sound science; 2) high repeatability; and 3) the production of industry- and(or) consumer-relevant results.
Keywords: Color, Fat quality, Palatability, Water-holding capacity