Myoglobin Chemistry and Meat Color

Abstract

Consumers rely heavily on fresh meat color as an indicator of wholesomeness at the point of sale, whereas cooked color is exploited as an indicator of doneness at the point of consumption. Deviations from the bright cherry-red color of fresh meat lead to product rejection and revenue loss. Myoglobin is the sarcoplasmic heme protein primarily responsible for the meat color, and the chemistry of myoglobin is species specific. The mechanistic interactions between myoglobin and multiple extrinsic and intrinsic factors govern the color of raw as well as cooked meats. The objective of this review is to provide an overview of the current research in meat color and how the findings are applied in the meat industry. Characterizing the fundamental basis of myoglobin's interactions with biomolecules in postmortem skeletal muscles is necessary to interpret the chemistry of meat color phenomena and to engineer innovative processing strategies to minimize meat discoloration-induced revenue loss to the agricultural economy.

Intramuscular Variations in Color and Sarcoplasmic Proteome of Beef Semimembranosus during Postmortem Aging

“…This high temperature-low pH combination is known to denature muscle proteins leading to pale, soft, and exudative-like conditions in beef Hedrick, 1977a, 1977b;Fischer and Hamm, 1980;Aalhus et al, 1998;Warner et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2014). Furthermore, such conditions promote myoglobin oxidation and denaturation, thereby compromising meat color stability (Suman and Joseph, 2013;Faustman and Suman, 2017;Neethling et al, 2017).…”

Nitrite Embedded Vacuum Packaging Improves Retail Color and Oxidative Stability of Bison Steaks and Patties

“…Thus, the pigment structure does not likely contribute to poor color stability in fresh bison meat. Rather, poor color stability in bison meat is likely the result of the higher pigment content, difference in postmortem oxygen consumption and metmyoglobin reducing ability (Suman and Joseph, 2013). In addition, oxidative stability at retail can be affected by the fatty acid composition of the meat (Aalhus and Dugan, 2014).…”

Potency of Culled Saanen Crossbred Goat in Supplying Raw Meat for Traditional Thai Butchery

“…A-16824 Da as molecular weight of goat myoglobin (Suman et al, 2009;Suman & Joseph, 2013) was multiplied with the obtained myoglobin content to convert the result from Mmol/L of diluted myoglobin into mg/g of meat sample.…”