The Effects of Hot Boning and Injection Processing for Improving Eating Quality and Increasing the Demand of Cull Cow Beef

由于失去了美国市场，加拿大疯牛病的发展使屠宰牛的生产者损失惨重。国内市场需要增加对精选牛肉的利用，以提高收益。质量和一致性的问题必须通过事后处理来克服。用磷酸盐化合物对肉类进行注射加工现在很普遍，以提高消费者的适口性（嫩度、多汁性、风味）和肉类行业的盈利能力。在美国和加拿大以外的地方，在将牛尸体加工成肉片之前，会先将牛尸体热去骨。研究表明，特定的食品级化学物质可以用于热骨肌肉，以提高红品牌牛肉的产品质量。本研究旨在探讨热剔骨和注射工艺对提高精选牛肉品质的作用。将传统的在胴体制作前冷却牛肉胴体的方法与热去骨的过程进行比较。此外，还研究了各种食品级化学品的注射加工，以检查热骨和注射加工的潜在添加剂效应。该项目考察加工对肌肉生化、产品外观、肉质属性、食用品质属性、产品保质期和食品安全的影响。研究肌肉生物化学以确定提高产品质量的作用模式。检查潜在的处理对产品外观的影响对于确定产品是否可以以鲜肉或熟牛肉的形式销售是很重要的。需要对肉质进行实验室和感官评价，以确定加工技术的有效性。最终的调查将确定加工技术是否会因有害微生物的增殖而危及食品安全。来自圆形、腰部和夹头的肌肉将被用来确定这些死后加工技术的有效性，以提高产品质量。如果有效，采用这些技术将增加对淘汰牛牛肉的需求，并从淘汰牛的销售中给生产者带来回报。

The development of BSE in Canada devastated returns to producers for cull cows with the loss of the U.S. market.  Increased utilization of cull cow beef in domestic markets is needed to improve returns.  Problems with quality and consistency must be overcome through postmortem processing.  Injection processing of meat with phosphate compounds is now commonplace to improve palatability (tenderness, juiciness, flavor) for consumers and profitability for the meat industry.  Outside of the U.S. and Canada, hot boning of beef carcasses is used prior to fabrication of carcasses into cuts.  Research has shown that specific food grade chemicals can be used on hot boned muscles to enhance product quality in red branded beef. The objective of this study is to examine hot boning and injection processing on improving the quality of cull cow beef.  The conventional method of chilling beef carcasses prior to carcass fabrication is compared to the process of hot boning.  In addition, injection processing with various food grade chemicals is investigated to examine the potential additive effect of hot boning and injection processing. The project examines processing effects on muscle biochemistry, product appearance, meat quality attributes, eating quality attributes, product shelf life, and food safety.  Muscle biochemistry is examined to determine the modes of actions for improving product quality.  The examination of potential treatment effects on visual appearance of the product is important to determine if products can be marketed in the fresh meat case or as cooked beef.  Laboratory and sensory evaluations of meat quality are needed to determine the effectiveness of processing techniques.  The final investigations will determine if the processing techniques can compromise food safety from the proliferation of undesirable microorganisms.   Muscles from the round, loin, and chuck will be used to determine the effectiveness of these postmortem processing techniques to enhance product quality.  If effective, adoption of these techniques will increase demand for cull cow beef and returns to producers from the marketing of cull cows.