Volatile organic compounds and consumer preference for meat from suckling goat kids raised with natural or replacers milk

Guillermo Ripoll,María De Guía Córdoba,María Jesús Alcalde,Alberto Martín,Anastasio Argüello,Rocío Casquete,Begoña Panea

doi:10.1080/1828051x.2019.1646107

Abstract

Most of European Union goats are slaughtered with carcase weights between 5 kg and 11 kg. Some farmers rear kids with milk replacers to produce cheese with the dams’ milk. The aim of this experiment was to study the volatile compounds (VOCs) of meat of suckling light kids reared with natural milk or milk replacers and to study the influence of consumers’ psychographic characteristics on the sensory preference for meat. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was performed to identify the VOCs and consumers evaluated the flavour, juiciness and overall acceptability. Thirty-five VOCs were detected and 44.3%, 25.1%, 6.9% and 2.3%, were aldehydes, hydrocarbons, ketones and alcohols, respectively. The influence of the rearing system on VOCs clearly depended on the breed. The use of milk replacers did not affect the percentage of linear aldehydes compared to the use of natural milk. However, the major aldehyde, hexanal (34.8%), was related to the use of natural milk and correlated positively with both the flavour (r = 0.21) and overall acceptability (r = 0.24). On the other hand, hydrocarbons such as hexane were related to MR, and 2-methyl-pentane and 3-methyl pentane were correlated with the acceptability of flavour (r = −0.22 and −0.25, respectively) and with the overall acceptability (r = −0.21 and −0.24). The 2-penthyl furan and 2-ethyl-1-hexanol were correlated with the overall acceptability (r = −0.22 and −0.22, respectively). Therefore, the acceptability of meat from suckling kids fed natural milk was greater for older consumers and people with a moderate consumption of meat.HighlightsGoat farmers remove the kids from their dams at a very young age and rear them with milk replacers, but this practice may alter the flavour of meat.The major aldehyde, hexanal, was related to the use of natural milk and correlated positively with the flavour and overall acceptability.Acceptability of meat from suckling kids fed natural milk was greater for older consumers and people with a moderate consumption of meat.

Highlights

Spain has one of the largest goat populations in the European community, producing 20% of the milk goats and 10.9% of the kid meat in the European Union (MAPAMA 2016)
The interaction between the breed and the rearing system affected 31 volatile compounds (VOCs) (p < .05), while 2ethyl hexanal, toluene and carbon disulphide were only affected by breed (p < .001). 2.5-dimethyl pyrazine was affected by breed and rearing system (p < .05)
There are many VOCs detected in the headspace of cooked meat, and most of them are generated by Strecker degradation of amino acids as a part of the Maillard reaction and lipid oxidation (Calkins and Hodgen 2007)

Summary

Introduction

Spain has one of the largest goat populations in the European community, producing 20% of the milk goats and 10.9% of the kid meat in the European Union (MAPAMA 2016). Eighty per cent of this kid meat comes from the light suckling kid category (cabrito) (MAPAMA 2016). These light suckling kids have a live weight of 10–11 kg and carcase weight of 5–7 kg, and are perceived by consumers to be high-quality meat (Marichal et al 2003). When kid goats are reared with their dams, the availability of milk for cheese production decreases. Some goat farmers remove the kids from their dams at a very young age and rear them with

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