Cook, Love, Vickery, and Young (1926) found that "drip," the bloodlike fluid exuding from frozen meat upon thawing, contained approximately 9 per cent protein and that the percentage of protein was approximately the same for drip from either pork, lamb, beef, o r veal. Although this would indicate that a considerable amount of the nutrients in the meat may be lost if the drip is discarded, as is frequently the case, very little information is available on the nutritive value of the drip.A nuniber of investigators (Ramsbottom and B o o m , 1939 ; IIiner, Madsen, and Hankins, 1945) have reported that rapid freezing greatly reduces drip losses as compared with slow freezing. Using beef aged 6 days, Pearson and Miller (1950) found that the amount of drip did not appear to be greatly influenced by rate of freezing but increased as the period of freezer-storage was prolonged. However, no indication was found in the literature as to the nutritive value of drip. Thus, this study was undertaken to ascertain the percentage of thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine, pantothenic acid, and folk acid that is lost when drip obtained from frozen defrosted beef is discarded.
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDUREThe meat used in this study was obtained from a purebred Hereford steer approximately 20 months of age. The steer dressed 57.78 per cent and the carcass graded "U. S. Good." After aging the carcass for 5 days a t a local packing plant, the wholesale rib from each aide of the careas8 was removed and cut into steaks approximately 1% inches in thickness. Each steak was wrapped in cellophane with the "drug-store" wrap and overwrapped with ordinary butcher paper. After wrapping, the steaks were frozen and stored in a home-freezer a t 0°F.Steaks were removed from freezer-storage as needed for analysis. On removal for analysis, the longissirnus dorsi muscle was dissected from the remainder of the steak and thawed for 14 to 15 hours at approximately 26°C. in a large funnel, which drained into a graduate cylinder. The longissirnus dorsi muscle was weighed, both before and after thawing, and the drip was measured t o the nearest 0.1 ml.The longissirnus dorsi muscle was removed from another steak, and a portion of the frozen muscle was weighed and made into a slurry in a Waring Blendor. This sample was analyzed in order t o ascertain the amount of each vitamin in the frozen meat.Both the drip and meat were hydrolyzed by the same method for each vitamin in order to remove the possibility of variation due to differences in the treatment. The level of each vitamin was determined microbiologically in both the meat and drip. Thiamine was measured by the gravimetric response of Phyconyces blakleeanus according to the method of Hamner, Stewart, and Matrone (1943). Riboflavin was measured Present address :
