Meat and Muscle Biology (Dec 2021)
Determining the Longissimus lumborum and Psoas major Beef Steak Color Life Threshold and Effect of Postmortem Aging Time Using Meta-analysis
Abstract
Using meta-analysis, the color life threshold for beef longissimus lumborum (LL) and psoas major (PM) steaks during retail display (phase 1) and the effect of postmortem aging time (phase 2) on the display color life of LL and PM steaks were determined. In phase 1, data were retrieved from 13 refereed journal articles for LL and 3 refereed journal articles for PM, which included a* and subjective visual scores. The total display day observations for LL and PM were 148 and 27, respectively. Lower bound estimates using a 95% confidence interval for a* as a threshold for the display color life of LL and PM steaks were 20.24 and 20.99, respectively. For phase 2, data were retrieved from 26 refereed journal articles for LL and 10 referred journal articles for PM, which included a* and postmortem aging time. The total display day observations for LL and PM in phase 2 were 255 and 71, respectively. For LL steaks, the actual postmortem aging time was grouped into 5 categories: 0–7 d, 8–14 d, 15–21 d, 22–28 d, and 29–65 d. Additionally, the postmortem aging time of PM steaks was grouped into 2 categories: 0–7 d and 8–21 d. The first 21-d postmortem aging time for LL steaks had the longest color life, with 7 d. Additionally, 22 to 28 d of postmortem aging time and 29 to 65 d of postmortem aging time had 5 d and 4 d, respectively, of color life for LL steaks. The borderline acceptability estimated for PM steaks with 0–7 d and 8–21 of postmortem aging time was 3 d and 2 d of color life, respectively. Estimations from this meta-analysis demonstrate that using LL and PM subprimals that have a postmortem aging time of 21 d or less and 7 d or less, respectively, would optimize the retail display color life of aerobically packaged steaks.
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