Impact of Tumbling Process on the Toughness and Structure of Raw Beef Meat Pieces.

Konan Charles Aimeric N’Gatta,Raphael Favier,Dominique Gruffat,Jacques Rouel,Alain Kondjoyan,Thierry Astruc,Pierre-Sylvain Mirade,Annie Vénien

doi:10.3390/foods10112802

Abstract

Tenderness is a major factor in consumer perception and acceptability of beef meat. Here we used a laboratory tumbling simulator to investigate the effectiveness of the tumbling process in reducing the toughness of raw beef cuts. Twelve Semitendinosus beef muscles from cows were tumbled according to four programs: T1 (2500 consecutive compression cycles (CC), for about 3 h), T2 (6000 CC, about 7.5 h), T3 (9500 CC, about 12 h), and T4 (13,000 CC, about 16 h). The effect of tumbling on the toughness of raw meat was assessed using compression tests (stresses measured at 20% and 80% of deformation ratios) and microscopic observations made at the periphery and centre of meat samples, and compared against non-tumbled controls. Longer tumbling times significantly reduced the stresses measured at 20% and 80% compression rates, which reflected the toughness of muscle fibres and connective tissue, respectively. At the microscopic level, longer tumbling times led to reduced extracellular spaces, increased degradation of muscle structure, and the emergence of amorphous zones. A 12-h tumbling protocol ultimately makes the best compromise between the process time demand and toughness reduction in beef Semitendinosus meat pieces.

Highlights

For the past ten years, the meat industry has tried to provide high-quality meat products to meet rising demand in many countries
We found no significant difference between stress values at the 20% compression rate for the three longer treatments T2, T3 and T4, demonstrating a maximal impact of the treatment applied on the stress values at this 20% compression level from treatment
Some studies have investigated the effect of extending tumbling time on meat tenderness using mechanical measurements [6,9,17,19,30,31,32], but there has been no attempt to study the separate effects of tumbling on muscle fibres and connective tissue as factors in the mechanical properties of beef meat

Summary

Introduction

For the past ten years, the meat industry has tried to provide high-quality meat products to meet rising demand in many countries. The meat industry has developed several processes for tenderizing meat cuts, including enzymatic techniques (injection, infusion, marinating with exogenous enzymes), chemical techniques (injection or marinating with salts or sodium solution), and physical techniques (blade tenderization and tumbling). Blade tenderization and tumbling can improve the tenderness of meat cuts of intermediate tenderness or with high amounts of connective tissue [2]. They cause disintegration of the external surfaces of the meat pieces, disruption of the muscle network, and a release of myofibrillar proteins that increases protein extractability and solubility [4,5,6]. Studies have investigated tumbling-induced damage and deterioration at both microscopic and ultrastructural scale and found substantial modifications in muscle tissue [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]

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