Carbon Monoxide, Nitric Oxide, and Nitrogen Dioxide Levels in Gas Ovens Related to Surface Pinking of Cooked Beef and Turkey

Abstract

Carbon monoxide (CO) and total nitrogen oxide (NO(x)()) levels were monitored during meat cookery with a standard Ovenpak and a new ultralow-NO(x)() (ULN) cyclonic gas burner. With the standard burner, CO varied from 103 to 152 ppm, NO(x)() was 1.3-10.7 ppm, and surface pinking was observed on both beef and turkey. The ULN burner at optimal efficiency produced only 6.7 ppm of CO and 1 ppm of NO(x)(), insufficient to cause surface pinking. To determine the relative contribution of CO and NO(x)() to pinking, trials were also conducted in an electric oven with various pure gases. Pinking was not observed with up to 149 ppm of CO or 5 ppm of NO. However, as little as 0.4 ppm of nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)) caused pinking of turkey rolls. Beef roasts were pink at >2.5 ppm of NO(2). Thus, pinking previously attributed to CO and NO in gas ovens is instead due to NO(2), which has much greater reactivity than NO with moisture at meat surfaces.

Color Quality in Meat

“…This can react with meat pigments and will produce a heat stable red color on the surface of the meat to a depth of 1/8 to 1/4 inch, but not in the product interior. Recent work (28) found surface pinking in both cooked turkey and beef was not observed with up to 149 ppm carbon monoxide or 5 ppm nitric oxide (NO), but as little as 0.4 ppm nitrogen dioxide (N0 2 ) caused pinking.…”

Use of “filtered smoke” and carbon monoxide with fish

“…While the effect of CO as component of gas blends used for MAP packaging of meat, where it is comparable with FS regarding to its role in stabilisation of colour, has been investigated extensively (Gee and Brown, 1978;Wolfe, 1980;Aasgaard, 1993;Church, 1994;Sørheim et al, 1997Sørheim et al, , 1999Sørheim et al, , 2006Luno et al, 1998Luno et al, , 2000Cornforth et al, 1998;Klettner, 2001;Kusmider et al, 2002;Narasimha Rao and Sachindra, 2002;Krause et al, 2003;Hunt et al, 2004;John et al, 2005;Martinez et al, 2005;Wicklund et al, 2006;Wilkinson et al, 2006;Sebranek and Houser, 2006;Seyfert et al, 2007;Stetzer et al, 2007;De Santos et al, 2007), scientific papers on application of FS or CO on fish are rather scarce.…”

Primary structure of turkey myoglobin

“…This defect has been attributed to different pre-harvest (genetics, feeding and stress) and post-harvest (irradiation, nitrates, cooking method and non-meat ingredients) factors. However, the interactions of myoglobin (the sarcoplasmic haeme protein responsible for meat colour) with ligands and small biomolecules were considered as major endogenous factors contributing to pink colour defect (Cornforth et al, 1986(Cornforth et al, , 1998Nam & Ahn, 2002).…”