Abstract
Camel meat is an ethnic food consumed across the arid regions of Middle East and North-East Africa. It can be a potential alternative red meat for human consumption worldwide. Camel meat is nutritionally as good as any conventional meat source, in fact has an edge over beef or lamb due to its low intramuscular fat, low cholesterol content, and high iron content. Camel meat quality is a function of age, breed, and type of muscle consumed. Various techniques such as aging, low-temperature storage, and pre-treatment with antioxidants improve the quality and shelf life of camel meat. Active packaging and fermentation are promising techniques to improve consumer acceptance and shelf-life of camel meat. Very limited research is available about the use of novel pre-treatments, packaging, and processing techniques that can improve the consumer acceptability of camel meat. Due to restricted use of camel meat and its products to ethnic regions, a review highlighting the nutritional potential and strategies to improve the quality of camel meat and its products may enhance its global acceptance as an alternative source of red meat.
Highlights
Traditional meat products from camel meat have been consumed across various arid regions of the world such as Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean from time immemorial
Conclusion and future research Camel meat is a rich source of various macro and micronutrients making it nutritionally as good as any conventional meat sources
The nutritional quality of camel meat varies with age, breed, and type of muscle
Summary
Traditional meat products from camel meat have been consumed across various arid regions of the world such as Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean from time immemorial. Different methods to produce such traditional meat products involve drying, fermentation, salting, and cooking or their combination with the main aim to improve the palatability and shelf life of camel meat [4]. This review attempts to explore the nutritional composition, health benefits of camel meat, as well as various technological interventions such as packaging, pre-treatment, and processing to improve its quality and consumer acceptance. Camel meat has been reported for its low-fat content (1.1 to 10.0%) [24] in comparison with other meat sources such as veal [25], bovine, and sheep [26]. In a comparative study among different meat sources camel meat (1.51%) was reported to have significantly lower fat.
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