Effects of electrical stimulation on meat quality in goat carcasses

Author: Ömer Cetin ^* and Tuna Topcu

Received 22 July 2009, accepted 6 October 2009.

Abstract

Considering the common use of electrical stimulation in meat technologies, it was conducted a study with 10 female goats, in order to determine its effect on improving quality criteria. The goats, kept in the rest period before slaughtering, were stunned and exsanguinated. The subjects were cut into halves through median lines. The right halves were applied 50 Hz, 1.5 minutes long, 30 or 100 Volts of electrical stimulation (ES) and the left halves were kept as control group. The carcasses were studied in +4ºC stable refrigerator conditions for 7 days and pH, water activity, water holding capacity, drip loss, shear force, color, sensory panel values and total aerobic mesophilic bacterial count values were measured. Our findings showed that ES introduced faster decrease and lower values of pH decline compared to the control group. The application implemented lower values of water holding capacity, yet no significant difference between groups was found. The application had a negative impact on water activity and an increase was observed after the ES. ES increased the drip loss but only 1^st and 7^th days results were found to be highly significant (p<0.001) between ES and control groups. Significant differences of shear force values were measured between ES and control groups on the 7^th day (p<0.05). For the color measurement ES improved the color criteria, yet only significant difference was found for the L* value on the 7^th day (p<0.01). The total aerobic mesophilic bacterial count values indicated a positive influence of ES, but only for the Longissimus muscle significant differences were observed (p<0.01). For both raw and cooked sensory panel values it was observed that, ES had an positive impact on quality criteria. Also significant differences for raw sensory panel values were measured (p<0.01). In conclusion, our study showed that low voltage electrical stimulation is a useful method for improving quality criteria of goat meat.