Meat that has been frozen and thawed : compatible with high gastronomic standards?

• A long-term strategic work entailing animal- and environmental consideration has led to added values in the Swedish meat production. Today, meat handling may comprise logistics that include storage of frozen raw material to even out geographical and seasonal variations in demand. This is the case for the culturally significant Christmas ham that can be preserved through freezing before preparation just in time for the festive season. The formation of ice crystals during freezing damages the cell structure and concentrates the solutes in the meat (Leygonie et al. 2012; Bao et al., 2021). Improper thawing can result in quality losses, such as texture and colour changes, water loss, and denaturation and oxidation of myofibrillar proteins. This affects the eating quality and nutritional value of the meat negatively. At Kristianstad University, the effect of air- compared to microwave thawing was recently investigated in a pilot study and the water-holding ability was shown to be affected by thawing method (Nilsson & Lilja, 2021). As meat is very resource-demanding, all production processes must be optimized to reduce energy consumption and waste. Further, innovative preservation techniques like high-pressure processing (HPP), by which a product is nonthermally treated at high pressures by means of a liquid transmitter, can be applied to improve product quality. There are scientifically unaddressed questions regarding the effect of these technologies on sensory perception and consumer acceptance. Applied, challengedriven research is also lacking. We want to address this in a new project founded by the Knowledge Foundation to investigate if meat that has been frozen and thawed can be compatible with high gastronomic standards.

Ämnesord

LANTBRUKSVETENSKAPER  -- Lantbruksvetenskap, skogsbruk och fiske -- Livsmedelsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES  -- Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries -- Food Science (hsv//eng)

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