D. MITEVA, T. BAKALIVANOVA, St. GRIGOROVA, Kr. DIMOV and Tsv. TSVETKOV
Institute of Cryobiology and Food Technologies, BG - 1407 Sofia, Bulgaria
MITEVA, D., T. BAKALIVANOVA, St. GRIGOROVA, Kr. DIMOV and Tsv. TSVETKOV, 2007. Technological characteristics of gamma-irradiated buffalo-calf meat during storage. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 13: 641-650
An experiment was carried out with cooled shoulder from 14-month-old buffalo-calves of the Moura breed.The observations involved one control group and two experimental groups, irradiated with gamma-ray doses of 4 kGy and 8 kGy, accordingly. The experiment was carried out on preliminarily vacuumized samples over a period of 21 days. The technological characteristics of the meat were monitored by determining the water-retaining and emulsion ability. The meat color characteristic was derived by spectrophotometric determination of Mb, MetMb and OMb.The behaviour of total lipids was analyzed accounting for the level of free malone dialdehyde.The experiment showed that gamma-irradiation improves meat’s water-retaining and emulsion ability, which is better expressed at irradiation with dose of 4 kGy, while the colour characteristic of non-irradiated and irradiated samples is preserved throughout the testing period.The content of free malone dialdehyde increased and decreased, whereas in the end of the storage period, in the group irradiated with a dose of 8 kGy, the aldehyde amount reached 1.5 mg/kg, while in the group irradiated with a dose of 4 kGy, the aldehyde amount was below 1 mg/kg.The analysis of the results provides grounds to recommend irradiation of cooled buffalo-calf meat with gamma-ray dose of 4 kGy, which has good effect on meat’s technologic properties and extends the storage period subject to preliminary vacuumization of samples.