Color and Appearance
The appearance of meat at its point of sale is
the most important quality attribute governing its purchase. Changes in color of the
muscle and blood pigments (myoglobin and
hemoglobin, respectively) determine the
attractiveness of fresh red meat, which in turn
infl uences the consumer ’ s acceptance of
meat products (Pearson 1994 ). Consumers
prefer bright red fresh meats, brown or gray
cooked meats, and pink cured meats
(Cornforth 1994 ).
The pigment concentration in meat that
governs its color is certainly infl uenced by
species. Beef and lamb contain substantially
more myoglobin than pork and poultry meat,
thus accounting for the difference between
“ red ” (beef and lamb) and “ white ” (pork and
poultry) meats. Pigment concentration (myoglobin content) also increases with age; for
example, veal is brownish pink, while beef
from three - year - old steers is bright, cherry
red (Miller 2002 ). However, within a species,
meat color can be adversely affected by a
variety of factors, including postmortem handling, chilling, storage, and packaging (Miller
2002 ).
The color of frozen meat varies with the
rate of freezing. There is a direct relationship
between freezing rate and muscle lightness;
the faster the rate, the lighter the product
(MacDougall 1974 ). These differences in
frozen meat lightness result from the dependence of ice crystal growth on the freezing
rate. Small crystals formed by fast freezing
scatter more light than large crystals formed
by slow freezing, and hence fast frozen meat
is opaque and pale and slow frozen meat is
translucent and dark (MacDougall 1974 )
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..
