Quality evolution of raw meat under hyperbaric storage – Fatty acids, volatile organic compounds and lipid oxidation profiles

Abstract

Hyperbaric Storage (HS) is being increasingly studied as a possible replacement or complement of refrigeration (RF). This work aimed evaluating the performance of HS to preserve raw pork in pieces (PP) and raw minced bovine meat (BM) at two different conditions (60 MPa/10 °C and 75 MPa/25 °C), by evaluating fatty acids, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and lipid oxidation profiles for 60 days of storage, using RF (4 °C) as control.Regarding fatty acids, 60 MPa/10 °C was the best storage condition, but all samples experienced PUFA reduction along time, particularly BM, for which lipid oxidation might have been enhanced due to mincing. VOCs profile analysis allowed identifying several compounds related to meat spoilage and lipid oxidation, with hexanal, 3-methylbutanal, 1-octen-3-ol, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, 2,2,4,6,6-pentamethylheptane, and 2,2,4,4-tetramethyloctane showing high variations along storage, but with an overall similar to better preservation at 60 MPa/10 °C compared to RF. Concerning lipid oxidation, 60 MPa/10 °C resulted also in lower lipid oxidation (primary, secondary and tertiary) throughout storage with TBARS values similar to RF storage.Thus, HS could be considered as a new meat preservation methodology to replace (75 MPa/25 °C) or complement RF (60 MPa/10 °C) with an expected overall quality better than RF based on the quality parameters evaluated.