Lawrie's Meat Science

Fidel Toldra, Fidel Toldra

• Editorial: Woodhead Publishing
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780081006979
• Edición: 8
• Categoría: Medicine
• Categoría: Medical Microbiology & Parasitology

Lawrie's Meat Science, Eighth Edition, provides a timely and thorough update to this key reference work, documenting significant advances in the meat industry, including storage and preservation of meat, the eating quality of meat, and meat safety.

The book examines the growth and development of meat animals, from the conversion of muscle to meat and eventual point of consumption. This updated volume has been expanded to include chapters examining such areas as packaging and storage, meat tenderness, and meat safety. Furthermore, central issues such as the effects of meat on health and the nutritional value of meat are analyzed.

Broadly split into four sections, the book opens with the fundamentals behind the growth of meat animals. The second section covers the storage and spoilage of meat products, with the third section exploring the eating quality of meat, from flavor to color. The final section reviews meat safety, authenticity, and the effect of meat on health.

• Encompasses the recognized gold- standard reference for the meat industry
• Brings together leading experts in each area, providing a complete overview of the meat sciences
• Includes all the latest advances, bringing this new edition completely up-to-date, including developments in meat quality, safety, and storage

Chapter 1

Introduction

Jeffrey W. Savell Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States

Abstract

Meat science is a discipline that requires a complete understanding of antemortem and postmortem factors, which affect the ultimate consumer product. Meat is the flesh of animals used for food, with most of the world production focused on beef, pork, and lamb, and with some countries/regions utilizing buffalo, camel, goat, horse, rabbit, and exotic game. Livestock domestication occurred about 10,000 years ago and was centered through parts of the Fertile Crescent. Recent developments in mitochondrial DNA and other techniques have allowed researchers to better understand when and where domestication occurred. The top beef-producing countries are the United States, Brazil, European Union, China, and India, and the top pork-producing countries are China, European Union, and the United States. Animal welfare, sustainability, and kosher and halal slaughter/processing are key areas that impact the worldwide marketing of meat.

Keywords

Animal welfare; Beef; Buffalo; Camel; Goat; Horse; Kosher and halal; Lamb; Livestock domestication; Meat; Meat production; Muscle; Pork; Sustainability

Meat science is a discipline that requires a complete understanding of the complexities of antemortem and postmortem factors that impact the final product for the consumer. Subsequent chapters in this book will delve into these factors more deeply, but an overview of some of the background and current issues related to meat production is an important starting point for this journey.

1.1. Meat and Muscle

The basic definition of meat is the flesh of animals used for food. For the most part and for most societies, meat comes from domesticated livestock with the primary species being cattle, hogs, and sheep. Although skeletal muscle makes up the greatest proportion of the products produced and consumed, various organs and other offal items are important food components for many nations and often contribute greatly to the export markets for those countries that produce more than what can be consumed domestically.

One example of a technical definition of meat can be found at U.S. Department of Agriculture (2016a):

Meat. (1) The part of the muscle of any cattle, sheep, swine, or goats which is skeletal or which is found in the tongue, diaphragm, heart, or esophagus, with or without the accompanying and overlying fat, and the portions of bone (in bone-in product such as T-bone or porterhouse steak), skin, sinew, nerve, and blood vessels which normally accompany the muscle tissue and that are not separated from it in the process of dressing. As applied to products of equines, this term has a comparable meaning.

1. Meat does not include the muscle found in the lips, snout, or ears.

2. Meat may not include significant portions of bone, including hard bone and related components, such as bone marrow, or any amount of brain, trigeminal ganglia, spinal cord, or dorsal root ganglia.

Regulatory authorities within governments must define what constitutes “meat” for its citizens as a way to ensure proper labeling and prevention of adulteration, and it is expected that this definition will vary from country to country. This definition from the United States has been updated since the occurrence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the mid-1980s as reflected by the reference to the absence of items now considered as “specified risk materials” (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2016b).

1.2. Meat From Other Animals

Throughout the world, there are many other animals used for primary or secondary sources of meat for consumption. The buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is an important source of draft power, milk, meat, and hides in many Asian countries, with the greatest numbers present in India, China, Pakistan, and Nepal (Nanda and Nakao, 2003). Desert camels (Camelus dromedarius), in addition to their historic use as a transporter, their drought tolerance, and their ability to adapt to harsh arid and semiarid zones, provide food for parts of Africa (Kurtu, 2004; Yousif and Babiker, 1989) and the Middle East (Elgasim and Alkanhal, 1992; Kadim et al., 2006).

The goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) is a great contributor to the development of rural zones and people (Dubeuf et al., 2004) and historically has been a great source of meat, milk, fiber, and skin. Dubeuf et al. (2004) stated that goats are found on all continents, with the greatest numbers being located in Asia (especially China and India), Africa (especially Nigeria and Ethiopia), Europe (especially Greece and Spain), and the Americas (especially Mexico and Brazil). For species such as goats, sometimes meat production is secondary to that of milk or fiber, which often diminishes the value of meat in the marketplace.

The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is used as a source of human food in some cultures, with the majority of horse meat production/importation occurring in Asia and Western Europe (Gill, 2005). Gill (2005) also stated that the Western European countries with the greatest amounts of horse meat produced, exported, and/or imported were Italy, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Gade (1976) stated that the acceptance of horse meat in France as a food item for humans would be one of the few documented cases of a change in attitude from aversion to that of acceptance and was probably driven by food-shortage crises of the past.

For many years, the United States slaughtered horses with the majority of the more valued cuts destined for Western Europe and the less valued cuts remaining for use in pet food manufacturing or use in zoos. In 2005, the first successful attempt by the US Congress to find a way to stop horse slaughter was through an act that prevented federal monies from being used to pay the salaries or expenses of inspectors. Even though this bill expired several years later, the US budget passed in early 2014 reinstated the ban on the use of federal monies for inspection of horse meat. Nonetheless, there are EU-approved horse slaughter facilities in Canada and Mexico that handle much of the volume of North American horses that are destined for slaughter.

Horse meat production and consumption were brought to international headlines when in 2013, in parts of Ireland and the United Kingdom, processed beef products were found to have been contaminated/adulterated with horse meat (Abbots and Coles, 2013). Regan et al. (2015), in a survey of the aftermath of this incident, found three factors that were related to ...