POROSITY IN COOKED BEEF FROM CONTROLLED-ATMOSPHERE PACKAGING IS CAUSED BY RAPID CO2 GAS EVOLUTION

Meat packaged and stored in CO2 atmospheres (O-2 < 200 ppm) develops p ores during cooking. Packaging beef in CO2 or 0.25 M NaHCO3 (pH 5.6) d uplicated pore formation. Beef stored in vacuum-packaging following st orage in CO2 exhibited pores after cooking. Dialysis with distilled wa ter eliminated pore formation and reduced gas production during cookin g of beef stored in 0.25 M NaHCO3 or CO2. Differential scanning calori metry showed that the thermal denaturation temperature of purified col lagen was not affected by CO2 storage. These data suggest that pore fo rmation is linked to release of CO2 in meat during cooking. Cooking de natures proteins; thus, CO2 released during cooking may gather at the weakest point of the muscle, the perimysium, producing pores. Copyrigh t (C) 1996 Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology. Publishe d by Elsevier Science Ltd