Impact of ultraviolet irradiation processing on quality of fresh beef meat during cold storage.

Abstract

Meat is an excellent source of many nutrients, especially protein, B vitamins, iron and zinc. As a nutrient dense food, meat provides major nutritive contributions to your diet relative to the amount of calories it contains. The objective is studying the effect of ultraviolet (UV) radiation on the fresh beef quality during cold storage with respect to survival and growth of bacteria, shelf-life, chemical, physical and color properties. Fresh beef was exposed to three doses (12.7, 25.5 and 38.2W.s/cm²) of ultraviolet (254nm). The obtained results were indicated that: 1) the UV radiation was leaded to reduce the total number of microorganisms 3.7x10⁴, 5.8x10³ and 10³_.  Meanwhile, the shelf lives of the treated samples were increased 10, 15 and 20 days in the irradiated beef samples at UV radiation doses of 12.7, 25.5 and 38.2W.s/cm² respectively. 2) For the chemical properties the moisture content was decreasing in from 77.63 to 74.8, 73.82 and 73.6%; protein content from 21.31 to 19.61, 19.22 and 18.15%; collagen content from 2.29 to 1.7, 1.58 and 1.55 and fat content form 2.87 to 2.67, 2.53 and 2.41%. Meanwhile, there were increasing in the pH values from 5.86 to 6.73, 6.79 and 6.74, and TBA values increased from 0.73 to 1.86, 2.45 and 2.53mg malonaldehyde/1kg by UV radiation during cold storage period for control and UV radiation doses 12.7, 25.5 and 38.2W.s/cm² respectively. 3) The physical parameters like cooking loss were slightly decreasing from 46.44 to 35.21, 36.28 and 35.39%; share force form 2.86 to 1.01, 0.93 and 1.22 Kgf and water holding capacity from 77.69 to 73.61, 73.51 and 72.91% for control and UV radiation doses 12.7, 25.5 and 38.2W.s/cm² of treated beef samples during cold storage respectively. 4) For color properties UV irradiated samples had higher Hue degree from 25.04 to 31.7, 32.51 and 33.07 degree. Meanwhile, lightness values were decreased from 37.21 to 28.76, 29.05 and 28.66 and saturation values from 31.05 to 19.67, 19.92 and 20.03 for control and UV radiation doses 12.7, 25.5 and 38.2W.s/cm² respectively. 5) It was concluded that UV radiation had significant impacts on microbial quality, extend shelf-life of fresh beef, chemical and physical parameters and color attributes of fresh beef during cold storage.