Faculty of Veterinary Medicine University of Zagreb
Abstract
Electrical stimulation of carcasses is a procedure that is used to promote tenderness of meat. However it has also been shown to affect pH and meat color. To determine if bovine carcasses that receive electrical stimulation to improve their tenderness showed better values of pH, L*, a*, b*, C* and H* when compared with carcasses that were not stimulated, a comparison was done between 59 electrical stimulated and 79 non-stimulated carcasses, all of which were processed in a Federal inspected slaughterhouse, and electrical stimulation was administered according to the standard procedure performed by the slaughter plant and all data were obtained from the longissimus dorsi muscle 24 hours after slaughter, and the model used to estimate the differences was simple linear regression with dummy variables, due to the fact that the variable “electrical stimulation” is discrete. Beef pH levels in stimulated carcasses was 0.2 units lower (P<0.01), while the differences for a*, b*, C* and H* were 1.8, 1.9, 2.4 (P<0.01) and 3.2 (P<0.5) when compared to the results from non-stimulated beef In the case of L*, electrical stimulation had no statistical effect. Although a statistically significant effect of electrical stimulation on color was found, the results indicate that it cannot be considered a useful procedure to improve the colorimetric quality of beef because of its small size. However, in the case of pH the effect was found to be significant.Električna stimulacija na trupovima zaklanih životinja postupak je kojim se poboljšava mekoća mesa. No, pokazalo se da taj postupak utječe i na pH odnosno boju mesa. Radi utvrđivanja dovodi li električna stimulacija upotrijebljena za poboljšanje mekoće mesa i do poboljšanja vrijednosti pH, L*, a*, b*, C* i H*, provedena je usporedba između 59 električno stimuliranih i 79 nestimuliranih trupova obrađenih u klaonici pod federalnom inspekcijom. Primijenjen je standardni postupak električne stimulacije, a svi podaci utvrđeni su za mišić longissimus dorsi, 24 sata nakon klanja. Uvažavajući da je električna stimulacija diskretna varijabla, za procjenu razlika korišten je model jednostavne linearne regresije s kodirajućom varijablom. Razina pH goveđeg mesa u električno stimuliranim trupovima bila je 0,2 jedinice niža (P<0,01), dok su razlike za a*, b*, C* i H* bile 1,8; 1,9; 2,4 (P<0,01) i 3,2 (P<0,5) veće u usporedbi s rezultatima za meso iz nestimuliranih trupova. U slučaju L*, električna stimulacija nije imala statistički dokazan učinak. Iako je ustanovljen statistički značajan učinak električne stimulacije na boju mesa, zbog male veličine tog učinka stimulacija se ne može uzeti u obzir za poboljšanje kolorimetrijske kvalitete goveđeg mesa. Međutim, u slučaju pH taj je učinak bio izraženiji
