Volatile organic compounds in beef and pork by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry: A review

Abstract

The aroma of meat is an integral part of flavor and therefore an essential element for consumer acceptance. Aroma compounds are challenging to extract, concentrate, separate, identify, and quantify due to the complexity of meat. A wide range of volatile compounds of different properties (molecular weight, polarity, vapor pressure) are present in raw meat at varying concentrations, and further exacerbated post cooking due to the creation of additional volatiles through mainly Maillard reactions and lipid oxidation reactions. The volatiles identified in cooked meats include hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, esters, lactones, ethers, heterocyclic constituents, and sulfur-/halogen-containing components. From published research, some of the key volatiles influencing cooked beef/pork flavor include hexanal,

Formation and Analysis of Volatile and Odor Compounds in Meat—A Review

“…The process of sample preparation is the most important step prior to the analysis of the volatile composition of the sample by GC [ 116 ]. Meat, being a heterogeneous sample matrix with many different components such as fat, muscle fibers, and connective tissue, usually needs to be minced and homogenized to be useable for analysis [ 11 , 117 ].…”

“…Although a variety of sample preparation techniques for the analysis of VOCs in meat are available (as reviewed by [ 11 , 117 ]), this review focuses on three methods that appear to be the most commonly employed, based on the number of publications listed in PubMed and Google Scholar.…”

“…It can be carried out either by direct immersion into a liquid sample matrix at the bottom of the headspace (HS) vial (DI-SPME) or as a headspace extraction technique by adsorbing or absorbing the volatiles in the headspace over the sample in the vial (HS-SPME) [ 116 ]. Since DI-SPME significantly shortens the lifetime of the fibers, and the sample needs to be in the liquid phase, HS-SPME is the method of choice for the extraction of the VOCs in food, and consequently, in meat samples, as it has many advantages over other extraction methods [ 11 ].…”

“…It is well known that volatiles originating from lipid oxidation such as ketones and alcohols have high odor thresholds (mg/L range), aldehydes µg/L to mg/L range, while N- and S-heterocyclic compounds originating from the Maillard reaction and Strecker degradation have odor thresholds in the µg/L range [ 11 ]. The odor thresholds for the most important odor-active compounds in cooked meats were reviewed recently [ 103 ].…”

“…The composition of the food matrix (moisture content, pH, presence of fat and protein, etc.) needs to be given serious consideration when deciding on an appropriate method for analysis, as do the volatile compounds of interest and their potential ranges in the sample [ 11 ].…”