•Meat alternatives are associated with “tofu,” “vegan and vegetarian,” as well as “disgust.”•Meat alternatives are similarly perceived to their processed meat counterparts.•Eating meat alternatives ...is perceived to be more appropriate in informal situations.•Meat alternatives similar to processed meat have the best chance to replace meat.
The consumption of meat contributes significantly to undesirable effects on the environment. In order to reduce the impact of animal husbandry, one approach is to decrease meat consumption by substituting plant-based meat alternatives. Because the consumption of such meat alternatives is currently rather low, the aim of this research was to identify the barriers that keep people from consuming meat alternatives and increase the probability of future consumption. This was accomplished by exploring free associations people have towards meat and meat alternatives, comparing selected meat products with their respective meat alternatives using the semantic differential, and studying the perceived appropriateness of eating meat alternatives in different consumption situations. To achieve these objectives, we carried out an online survey with participants from Germany (N = 1039). Our results suggest that while meat is being associated with positive terms, meat alternatives were viewed more negatively. The previous findings that meat alternatives should be similar to meat with regard to taste, texture, and ease of preparation were confirmed. Results from the direct comparison of meat with corresponding meat alternatives indicate that meat alternatives are similarly perceived to their processed meat counterparts. Regarding different consumption situations, our results show that eating meat alternatives is perceived to be more appropriate in situations where one eats alone or with family and friends. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that meat alternatives have the best chance of successfully replacing meat when they closely resemble highly processed meat products in taste and texture and are offered at competitive prices. The recommendation for producers of meat alternatives is thus to focus on replicating processed meat products instead of trying to imitate meat cuts such as steak or escalope.
Population growth and the rising enthusiasm for meat consumption in developing countries have increased the global demand for animal protein. The limited increase in traditional meat production, ...which results in high resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and zoonotic diseases, has affected the sustainable supply of meat protein. The technological development and commercialization of meat analogs derived from plant and microbial proteins provide a strategy for solving the abovementioned problems. However, before these innovative foods are marketed, they should comply with regulations and standards to ensure food safety and consumer rights. This review briefly summarizes the global development status and challenges of plant‐ and fungi‐based meat analog products. It focuses on the current status, characteristics, and disputes in the regulations and standards worldwide for plant‐ and fungi‐based meat analogs and proposes suggestions for perfecting the regulatory system from the perspective of ensuring safety and supporting innovation. Although plant‐ and fungi‐based meat analogs have had a history of safe usage as foods for a certain period around the world, the nomenclature and product standards are uncertain, which affects product innovation and global sales. Regulatory authorities should promptly formulate and revise regulations or standards to clarify the naming of meat analogs and product standards, especially the use of animal‐derived ingredients and limits of nutrients (e.g., protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals) to continuously introduce start‐up products to the market.
Biofilms are surface-attached microbial communities with distinct properties, which have a tremendous impact on public health and food safety. In the meat industry, biofilms remain a serious concern ...because many foodborne pathogens can form biofilms in areas at meat plants that are difficult to sanitize properly, and biofilm cells are more tolerant to sanitization than their planktonic counterparts. Furthermore, nearly all biofilms in commercial environments consist of multiple species of microorganisms, and the complex interactions within the community significantly influence the architecture, activity, and sanitizer tolerance of the biofilm society. This review focuses on the effect of microbial coexistence on mixed biofilm formation with foodborne pathogens of major concern in the fresh meat industry and their resultant sanitizer tolerance. The factors that would affect biofilm cell transfer from contact surfaces to meat products, one of the most common transmission routes that could lead to product contamination, are discussed as well. Available results from recent studies relevant to the meat industry, implying the potential role of bacterial persistence and biofilm formation in meat contamination, are reviewed in response to the pressing need to understand the mechanisms that cause "high event period" contamination at commercial meat processing plants. A better understanding of these events would help the industry to enhance strategies to prevent contamination and improve meat safety.
Protein oxidation (P-OX) is an innovative topic of increasing interest among meat researchers. Carbonylation is generally recognized as one of the most remarkable chemical modifications in oxidized ...proteins. In fact, the quantification of protein carbonyls by the dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) method is the most common procedure for assessing P-OX in meat systems. Numerous studies have investigated the occurrence of protein carbonylation right after slaughter and during subsequent processing and cold storage of meat. However, the significance of protein carbonylation in meat systems is still poorly understood. Beyond their role as markers of protein oxidation, specific protein carbonyls such as α-aminoadipic and γ-glutamic semialdehydes (AAS and GGS, respectively) are active compounds that may be implicated in several chemical reactions with relevant consequences on meat quality. The formation of protein carbonyls from particular amino acid side chains contribute to impair the conformation of myofibrillar proteins leading to denaturation and loss of functionality. Recent studies also highlight the potential impact of specific protein carbonyls in particular meat quality traits such as water-holding capacity (WHC), texture, flavor and its nutritional value. As a truly emerging topic, the results from current studies provide grounds from the development of further investigations. The present paper reviews the current knowledge on the mechanisms and consequences of protein carbonylation in meat systems and aims to encourage meat researchers to accomplish further investigations on this fascinating research topic.
In October 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) issued a press release on the results of the evaluation of the carcinogenicity of red and processed meat. Based on the ...accumulated scientific literature, the consumption of red meat was classified as “probably carcinogenic to humans” and processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans”. Given the importance of this topic, this review was aimed at revising the current state-of-the-art on the carcinogenicity of red and processed meat, some time after the IARC decision. Some new epidemiological studies and new reviews clearly supporting the IARC decision have been published during these months. However, a number of gaps still exist. It is basic to establish the mechanisms leading to the increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) and other cancers arising from red and processed meat consumption. Another important pending issue is to establish the role of known/suspected carcinogens contained in uncooked or unprocessed meats, as well as the influence of cooking. Finally, it would be highly recommended to conduct new epidemiological studies to elucidate whether the consumption of white meat, such as pork and/or poultry, are -positively or inversely-associated with an increased risk of CRC and other types of cancer.
•The current state-of-the-art on the carcinogenicity of red and processed meat is here reviewed.•New epidemiological studies and reviews supporting the IARC decision have been recently published.•There are still a number of gaps in the current knowledge that should be investigated.•It is basic to establish the mechanisms that lead to an increased risk of cancer colorectal.
Tenderness has been repeatedly reported as the most important quality aspect of meat. However, a number of studies have shown that a significant portion of retail meat can be considered tough. As a ...consequence, a significant consumer segment is willing to pay a premium for guaranteed tender meat. However, apart from measuring the shear force, there is no reliable method to predict tenderness. Most of the branded meat programs therefore attempt to ensure eating quality by controlling some of the factors that affect tenderness.
Meat tenderness is determined by the amount and solubility of connective tissue, sarcomere shortening during rigor development, and postmortem proteolysis of myofibrillar and myofibrillar-associated proteins. Given the effect of postmortem proteolysis on the muscle ultrastructure, titin and desmin are likely key substrates that determine meat tenderness.
A large number of studies have shown that the calpain proteolytic system plays a central role in postmortem proteolysis and tenderization. In skeletal muscle, the calpain system consists of at least three proteases, μ-calpain, m-calpain and calpain 3, and an inhibitor of μ- and m-calpain, calpastatin. When activated by calcium, the calpains not only degrade subtrates, but also autolyze, leading to loss of activity. m-Calpain does not autolyze in postmortem muscle and is therefore not involved in postmortem tenderization. Results from a number of studies, including a study on calpain 3 knockout mice, have shown that calpain 3 is also not involved in postmortem proteolysis. However, a large number of studies, including a study on μ-calpain knockout mice, have shown that μ-calpain is largely, if not solely, responsible for postmortem tenderization. Research efforts in this area should, therefore, focus on elucidation of regulation of μ-calpain activity in postmortem muscle. Discovering the mechanisms of μ-calpain activity regulation and methods to promote μ-calpain activity should have a dramatic effect on the ability of researchers to develop reliable methods to predict meat tenderness and on the meat industry to produce a consistently tender product.
Cultured meat has recently achieved mainstream prominence due to the emergence of societal and industrial interest. In contrast to animal-based production of traditional meat, the cultured meat ...approach entails laboratory cultivation of engineered muscle tissue. However, bioengineers have hitherto engineered tissues to fulfil biomedical endpoints, and have had limited experience in engineering muscle tissue for its post-mortem traits, which broadly govern consumer definitions of meat quality. Furthermore, existing tissue engineering approaches face fundamental challenges in technical feasibility and industrial scalability for cultured meat production. This review discusses how animal-based meat production variables influence meat properties at both the molecular and functional level, and whether current cultured meat approaches recapitulate these properties. In addition, this review considers how conventional meat producers employ exogenous biopolymer-based meat ingredients and processing techniques to mimic desirable meat properties in meat products. Finally, current biomaterial strategies for engineering muscle and adipose tissue are surveyed in the context of emerging constraints that pertain to cultured meat production, such as edibility, sustainability and scalability, and potential areas for integrating biomaterials and food biopolymer approaches to address these constraints are discussed.
Laboratory-grown or cultured meat has gained increasing interest from industry and the public, but currently faces significant impediment to market feasibility. This is due to fundamental knowledge gaps in producing realistic meat tissues via conventional tissue engineering approaches, as well as translational challenges in scaling up these approaches in an efficient, sustainable and high-volume manner. By defining the molecular basis for desirable meat quality attributes, such as taste and texture, and introducing the fundamental roles of food biopolymers in mimicking these properties in conventional meat products, this review aims to bridge the historically disparate fields of meat science and biomaterials engineering in order to inspire potentially synergistic strategies that address some of these challenges.
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Cheap meat Gewertz, Deborah; Errington, Frederick
2010., 20100109, 2010, 2010-02-08, 20100101
eBook, Book
Cheap Meat follows the controversial trade in inexpensive fatty cuts of lamb or mutton, called “flaps,” from the farms of New Zealand and Australia to their primary markets in the Pacific islands of ...Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Fiji. Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington address the evolution of the meat trade itself along with the changing practices of exchange in Papua New Guinea. They show that flaps—which are taken from the animals’ bellies and are often 50 percent fat—are not mere market transactions but evidence of the social nature of nutrition policies, illustrating and reinforcing Pacific Islanders’ presumed second-class status relative to the white populations of Australia and New Zealand.
The effect of Serrano and Iberian dry-cured ham processing and ripening on Listeria monocytogenes inactivation at the surface of whole hams was investigated. Salted hams were surface inoculated (6.5 ...log CFU) with a cocktail of 4 L. monocytogenes strains isolated from environment and products of a meat industry. Serrano and Iberian hams were ripened for 16 and 24 months, respectively. A decrease of at least 4.6 log units on the surface of Serrano ham was recorded after 4 months for L. monocytogenes counts, which remained under the detection limit thereafter. L. monocytogenes declined by >5 log units on the surface of Iberian ham during the first 9 months and was not detected afterwards. The higher nitrite content of Serrano ham might have accelerated the decrease of the pathogen. This study validates the inactivation of L. monocytogenes on the surface of whole dry-hams during extended ripening.
•L. monocytogenes declined by >4.6 logs on Serrano ham after 4 months.•L. monocytogenes declined by 5.4 logs on Iberian ham after 9 months.•The higher nitrite content of Serrano ham might have accelerated the decrease.•Ham processing was highly effective in inactivating L. monocytogenes during ripening.
Plant-based meat (PBM) has been gaining popularity due to increasing concerns over health, animal welfare, and environmental issues linked to animal foods. This study aimed to compare the nutrient ...profile of PBM with equivalent meat products. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 207 PBM and 226 meat products available from 14 retailers in the UK. We extracted data on energy density, total and saturated fat, protein, fiber, and salt per 100 g from product packaging and calculated the nutrient profile of each product. Compared to meat, PBM had significantly lower energy density, total fat, saturated fat, protein, and significantly higher fiber. Salt content was significantly higher in five out of six PBM categories. Based on the UK's Nutrient Profiling Model, 14% of PBM and 40% of meat products were classified as "less healthy" (
< 0.001). When considering the UK's front-of-pack labelling criteria 20% of the PBM and 46% of meat products were considered high in either total fat, saturated fat, or salt (
< 0.001). Nearly three quarters of PBM products did not meet the current UK salt targets. PBM products have a better nutrient profile compared to meat equivalents. However, more progress is needed to reduce salt in these products.
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