Abstract
Despite the release of several reports highlighting the potential benefits of pulsed electric field (PEF) technology in food processing, there are limited studies on the use of PEF in meat processing, in particular with fresh meat. The effect of PEF on the quality of beef loins (Musculus longissimus lumborum, LL) at 1 day postmortem and topsides (Musculus semimembranosus: SM) at 1 and 3 days postmortem was investigated using a range of treatment combinations [voltages (5 and 10 kV) and frequencies (20, 50 and 90 Hz)]. The investigated parameters were purge loss, cooking loss and meat tenderness (shear force) to identify the optimum PEF treatment conditions for each muscle to evaluate the economic (in terms of purge and cooking losses) and texture benefits of PEF treatments. The tenderness of the loin samples was found to benefit from PEF treatment (19.5 % reduction in the shear force) regardless of the electrical input, whereas the level of tenderness of the topsides was increased by increasing the treatment frequency (4.1, 10.4 and 19.1 % reduction in the shear force at 20, 50 and 90 Hz, respectively). Higher purge loss (%) and lower cooking loss (%) were found in PEF-treated samples. It is interesting to observe that the level of SM tenderness improvement was not dependent on the meat postmortem time up to 3 days which allows greater flexibility in the use of PEF technology.