Relationship between Portuguese consumer preferences and textural properties, chemical composition and nutritional value of beef
Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Beef is a nutritionally rich product with a high economic value. However in the last decades beef has been target of negative publicity by the media, mainly due to the high content of cholesterol as well as saturated and trans fatty acids (FA). The increasing number of food scares across the Europe over the last years has increased even more consumers’ concerns about beef quality and safety. Despite the health concerns beef sensory properties still remain the main purchasing and repeat purchasing criteria for the consumers. Tenderness has been considered the major palatability characteristic of beef and defines its commercial value. However, tenderness variability has been considered a major problem to the beef industry. In this context, the aim of this proposal was to ascertain the organoleptic properties and lipid nutritional value of beef and to relate them with the Portuguese consumer` preferences. The experimental work was divided in two trials. In the first trial, the meat quality and lipid nutritional value from “Vitela Tradicional do Montado”-PGI veal, Mertolenga-PDO veal and Mertolenga-PDO beef were studied. The results suggested that the three products are not very different, but the two veal types are more alike, which means that age had a more powerful effect than the crossbred or gender. Nevertheless, despite the similarity in FA profile and of the production systems of the animals sampled, it was possible to discriminate the meat types. Moreover, the PGI veal seems to have higher variability than the other two meat types studied. In the second trial, three beef types from the Portuguese market place, Carnalentejana-PDO, imported from Brazil and national undifferentiated beef, were studied and compared to characterise nutritional value and variability of beef lipids as well as the organoleptic properties and their variability. We also intended to relate the sensory attributes with instrumental measurements in order to realise if it is possible to predict sensory evaluation through instrumental measurements. Brazilian beef had the highest lipid nutritional value and lipid stability as this beef presented higher contents of α-tocopherol, β-carotene, CLA and PUFA. The data indicated that all beef types seem to have α-tocopherol values high enough to inhibit lipid oxidation and discoloration. Energy intake was calculated for the main FA and compared with the recommended daily intake. All beef types seem to have low cholesterol and SFA contents. Concerning the relation between the sensory attributes and the instrumental measurement, sensory tenderness was correlated with WBSF but not with TPA hardness. Nevertheless, TPA chewiness was well correlated with sensory tenderness indicating TPA usefulness to give addicional information of beef texture. Off-flavour was the ix main determinant of overall acceptability and Brazilian beef presented the highest and lowest values, respectively. Brazilian beef also had the lowest juiciness score, indicating that this beef type despite having the best lipid nutritional value can be rejected due to it sensory attributes. All beef types were considered slightly to moderately tender regarding WBSF and sensory tenderness mean values. National undifferentiated beef seem to have higher variability in the colour measurements, whilst Carnalentejana-PDO seems to depicted higher tenderness variability. Despite having mean values in the aforementioned attributes that indicates a consumer high acceptability, the high variability in both cases can be detrimental in the moment of sale.
Language: English
Subfield: Animal Science and Zoology
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W174856287