The aim of the work was to determine the effect of high hydrostatic
pressures on selected nutritional properties, hygienic state, and
organoleptic quality of beef and pork meats, both fresh and pickled.
The scope of the works included instrumental and sensoric analyses of
texture of the meat subjected to the action of high pressures ranging
350-400 MPa, instrumental and sensoric evaluation of its colour,
changes of the microbiological state during storage, and comparison of
the dynamics of selected enzymatic processes in pressurized and
non-pressurized meats.
It has been found that UHP treatment has favorable effect on such
textural properties of cooked meat as hardness, tenderness, gumminess,
and masticabiliy, and unfavorable effect on colour of fresh meat. The
action of UHP reduced the total count of microorganisms, approximately
by 2 orders of magnitude in the case of pork (from 2.3x105 to
1.2x103) and by 3 orders of magnitude in the case of beef (from
8x105 to 5x102). In both kinds of meat complete destruction of
Escherichia coli was observed.
Despite of the better microbiological state directly following the UHP
treatment the stability of the beef samples subjected to the treatment
was similar to the stability of control samples, whereas in the case
of pork the UHP treatment resulted in almost twice increase of
stability, as compared with control samples.
Pickling of the beef samples prior to UHP treatment prevented the
unfavorable changes in colour of the meat provoked by the high
pressure.
No substantial effect of high pressure treatment on digestibility of
pork and beef was observed.
The changes in tyrosine content during the storage of meat, as a
measure of the action of proteolytic enzymes, were more rapid in
pressurized samples than in the controls.
The activity of the egzopeptidase-type catepsines, determined as
proteolytic activity and expressed in micromoles of leucine per gram
of tissue, was initially higher in the controls of both kinds of meat,
but after a longer storage it was by about 14 % higher in the
pressurized samples.
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