Biochemical study the formation of key flavor precursors in various skeletal muscles post-mortem

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Raw meat has none of the aroma of cooked meat as the characteristic aroma is largely generated during cooking. In fact, the flavor compounds are generated via chemical reactions occurring between natural precursors present in raw meat during heating. Among these natural flavor precursors, sugars and sugar phosphates, and particularly five carbon sugars (pentoses) play a major role in generating the desirable aroma and flavor of cooked meat via the Maillard reaction. However, the biochemical pathways leading to the formation of these pentoses in meat are not fully understood. The accepted route for the formation of ribose, a five carbon sugar and a key flavor precursor in meat via the breakdown of ATP in muscle post-mortem, cannot explain the formation of all pentoses present in meat. For instance, ribulose-5-phosphate, ribose-5-phosphate, xylulose have been identified in various types of meat (chicken, beef and rabbit) while their biochemical origins remain unexplained. Biochemical pathways such as the pentose phosphate pathway may well be involved and could be muscle and/or species dependent. In addition, it is not clear how meat conditioning affects the formation and/or evolution of key flavor precursors' concentrations with time, and to what extent this step is muscle/species dependent. This NSERC discovery proposal aims to employ chemical and biochemical approaches to clarify the role of selected biochemical reactions in generating the key flavor precursors (pentoses) in selected skeletal muscles post-mortem. A comparative study using both white meat (chicken breast and leg) and popular Canadian lean red meats (bison and elk) is designed to elucidate firstly, the muscle and/or species dependency of the selected biochemical reactions important for meat flavor and secondly, to study the effect of meat conditioning on key flavor precursors in each type of meat. Model systems will be employed to investigate the role of candidate flavor precursors in selected meats and their contribution to the characteristic aroma and flavor of each selected muscle. This research program will help to understand the formation of flavor precursors in meat and will ultimately help with selection of genetic markers for flavor.