Effect of carcass electrical stimulation and suspension methods on meat quality characteristics of longissimus lumborum of young buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) bulls

Muhammad Jaspal¹, Muawuz Ijaz¹^,²^,³^,^*, Muhammad Akhtar¹, Jamal Nasir¹, Sana Ullah³, Iftikhar Badar¹, Muhammad Yar¹, Arfan Ahmad⁴

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¹Department of Meat Science and Technology/Faculty of Animal Production and Technology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54000, Pakistan, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.

²Department of Animal Sciences, CVAS-Jhang, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Jhang 35200, Pakistan.

³Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/Key Laboratory of Agro-Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Beijing 100193, P. R. China, Beijing 100193, China.

⁴University Diagnostic Laboratory, , University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54000, Pakistan, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.

^*Corresponding Author: Muawuz Ijaz, Department of Meat Science and Technology/Faculty of Animal Production and Technology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore 54000, Pakistan, Lahore 54000, Pakistan. Department of Animal Sciences, CVAS-Jhang, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Jhang 35200, Pakistan. Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/Key Laboratory of Agro-Products Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Beijing 100193, P. R. China, Beijing 100193, China. Phone: +92-42-99211374. E-mail: muawuz.ijaz@uvas.edu.pk.

© Copyright 2020 Korean Society for Food Science of Animal Resources. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jul 15, 2020 ; Revised: Aug 04, 2020 ; Accepted: Aug 17, 2020

Published Online: Sep 03, 2020

Abstract

Buffalo animals are slaughtered at their early age and carcasses are chilled rapidly which deteriorates its meat quality and decreases the consumer likeliness of buffalo meat. This study investigated the appropriate methods to prevent the quality deterioration of buffalo meat during chilling. Twenty four 18-month-old buffalo bulls were slaughtered, electrically stimulated and suspended either by hip or achilles tendon. After 24 h postmortem, meat quality characteristics were recorded. Results showed that electrical stimulation led to rapid decline of carcass pH compared to non-electrical stimulation method (p<0.05). Furthermore, electrically stimulated meat presented lower shear force accompanied with the higher CIE L*, a* and b* values (p<0.05). Suspension methods only affect the meat shear values and were lowered in hip suspended samples. It can be concluded that electrical stimulation combined with hip suspension can be adopted to prevent the meat quality deterioration of young buffalo bulls during postmortem storage.

Keywords: buffalo; carcass handling; meat quality; electrical stimulation; suspension methods