Odor Emissions from Raw Meat of Freshly Slaughtered Cattle during Inspection

• Published in: Foods Vol. 10; no. 10; p. 2411
• Main Authors: Conte, Francesca, Cincotta, Fabrizio, Condurso, Concetta, Verzera, Antonella, Panebianco, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 12.10.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Acetoin; Aroma compounds; Beef cattle; Butyrolactone; Calibration; Cattle; Food science; freshly slaughtered cattle; HS-SPME-GC-MS; Inspection; Life sciences; Meat; necropsy; Odors; Off odor; off odors; raw meat; Regulation; Reproducibility; Slaughter; Solid phase methods; Standard deviation; veterinarians; Veterinary medicine; Volatile compounds; Volatiles; United States > US; Italy
• ISSN: 2304-8158; 2304-8158
• DOI: 10.3390/foods10102411

Raw meat of Freshly Slaughtered Cattle (FSC) is characterized by a very weak odor defined as slightly sweet, which could interfere in off-odor assessment during post-mortem inspection by an official veterinarian. Despite this, no information is reported in the literature on the volatiles which are emitted by FSC meat. Thus, this research aimed to study the volatile profile of raw cattle meat at different times within 24 h of slaughtering. Volatiles were analyzed and quantified using HS-SPME-GC-MS. γ-Butyrolactone, acetoin, and to a lesser extent, acid acetic were found to be the odor-active compounds of raw meat from freshly slaughtered cattle. Quantitative differences were observed up to 24 h; since the lowest levels of the odor-active compounds were reached between two and three hours from slaughtering, this period could be the most suitable for the post-mortem inspection process.