Lipid and Protein Oxidation Marker Compounds in Horse Meat Determined by MIR Spectroscopy.

Irati Jáuregui-López,Miguel Beruete,Fernando Zulategi,Kizkitza Insausti,María Victoria Sarriés,María José Beriain

doi:10.3390/foods9121828

Abstract

This work broadens the study of lipid and protein oxidation marker compounds in foal meat, employing the technology of Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FT/MIR, shortened in the following as MIR). As a main objective, marker compounds from 23 foals were extracted and their absorbance spectra were measured to establish prediction models (calibration and validation) between them and classical quantification analysis of the compounds. Another objective was to ascertain whether a previous extraction of the marker compounds before executing their MIR analysis is preferable compared to direct MIR measurements on the raw meat samples. In this context, marker compound results (TBARS between 0.4387 and 2.1040, and carbonyls between 4.07 and 4.68) showed more consistent predictive models than the ones achieved using quantitative analysis of the spectra obtained from the raw meat. Lipid oxidation compounds predictive models obtained in this work offered an R2cv of 63.18% and protein oxidation R2cv obtained in this project showed a value of 54.24%. Thus, MIR technology arises as a promising tool to identify and quantify products derived from lipid and protein oxidation in fresh foal meat.

Highlights

While historically horse breeds used for consumption came from old animals previously employed for field labor, nowadays these animals come from selected breeds with meat production purposes [1].Around 700,000 foals graze in Spanish lands [2] and thousands of livestock heads are slaughtered annually, e.g., 38,200 during the year 2019, according to the data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the Spanish Government [3]
These results suggest that the MDA content in foal meat increases as the slaughter age increases, most likely due to a higher intramuscular fat percentage of older animals [23]
54.24%, which means an improvement of 29.69%. This suggests that when studying carbonyl content through MIR spectroscopy, it is preferable to perform a mean of the obtained spectra before constructing the predictive model

Summary

Introduction

While historically horse breeds used for consumption came from old animals previously employed for field labor, nowadays these animals come from selected breeds with meat production purposes [1].Around 700,000 foals graze in Spanish lands [2] and thousands of livestock heads are slaughtered annually, e.g., 38,200 during the year 2019, according to the data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the Spanish Government [3]. While historically horse breeds used for consumption came from old animals previously employed for field labor, nowadays these animals come from selected breeds with meat production purposes [1]. Spain is positioned as an important foal meat exporter and it is one of the biggest European producers. Foals raised for commercialization are animals between 7 and 9 months of slaughter age (lechales foals), or between 15 to 16 months of slaughtering age (quincenos foals) [4], demystifying the extended belief that horse meat always comes from old and rejected animals employed for other purposes. Foal meat composition presents several differences with other types of meat. Foal meat presents a 2% of total lipids in its composition, 32% of which are saturated fatty acids (SFA), while lean

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Conclusion