In the meat industry, there are two distinct applications in which enzymes can markedly boost the manufacturing process and upgrade meats of poorer quality. These applications are tenderization of too tough meat parts and restructuring of fresh low-value meat pieces and trimmings to higher quality steaks.
Meat Tenderization
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Tenderness of meat is prerequisite for meat industry and tenderisation makes the meat soft and more palatable. It improves the digestibility of meat and cutting, chopping, etc. becoming easier. Methods to increase tenderness include, for example natural aging, electric stimulation, mechanical blade tenderization and use of added proteolytic enzymes. Plant proteases, especially papain and bromelain, have been studied for tenderization purposes for decades. The way of applying tenderizing enzymes in meat industry depends on the actual target. If the aging time of high-grade meat parts has to be shortened, the main action of protein hydrolysis should be on myofibrillar proteins. If the tenderness improvement of lower grade meat cuts or meat from, for example aged animals is desired, the connective tissue proteins, mostly collagen, should be the target of proteolysis. The methods and challenges to tenderize meat sold raw to consumers differ from those needed for cooked meat. |
Clear positive effects were achieved in the study where microbial collagenases were evaluated for their ability to degrade collagen in a restructured beef product. Extreme thermophilic bacteria species have been searched in order to find proteases which would be active against collagen during a controlled cooking period of meat and show only limited activity during often uncontrollable cold storage periods. Interesting new proteases from plant origin are cucumis and ginger extracts. Powdered cucumis extract from the Kachri fruit as well as ginger proteases has successfully tenderized meats from different species. Ginger extract has proven to be especially effective in increasing collagen solubilization.
Flavor in Meat Products
Flavour has a major role, along with tenderness, in acceptability of meat by consumers. Because of the relationship of flavour and consumer acceptability, it is important to understand the factors influencing meat flavour in order to produce good-quality meat products. The flavour of raw meat is quite bland. However, it contains non-volatile constituents that are essential flavour precursors which during processing and storage affect the taste of the meat product. In general, the flavour of processed meat is a result of either enzymatic action or chemical reactions such as pyrolysis of amino acids and peptides, sugar degradation, degradation of ribonucleotides, Maillard reactions, thiamine degradation and degradation of lipids. The main enzymatic reactions affecting meat flavour or formation of flavour precursors are proteolysis and lipolysis. Both groups of reactions are due to the contribution of either endogenous proteases and lipases, enzymes of microbial origin naturally present in the product or enzymes added during the manufacturing process.
Fish Processing
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When considering the enzymatic processing of fish and seafood, the role of both endogenous and added enzymes has to be considered. In the latter case, the enzymes used are from mammalian, plant, or microbial sources. Ease of manipulation and cultivation of the latter makes them the preferred source of enzymes. These are typically from terrestrial organisms, yet given the wide pool of marine microorganisms, the trend toward the use of these as enzyme sources has been increasing. In particular, they are often adapted so as to display high activity at relatively low temperatures, unlike many of enzymes from terrestrial sources, thereby making them more effective in many processes that require often a low-temperature environment. |
Traditional use of enzymes in seafood processing involves the use of proteases, namely bacillolysin, ficin, papain, pepsin, subtilisin, trypsin, and a mixture of bacillolysin and subtilisin, of both endogenous and exogenous nature, for descaling and deskinning, peeling of shrimp, production of caviar and fish sauce, recovery of diverse molecules, and tenderization of squid.
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