The effect of intense light pulses on the sensory quality and instrumental color of meat from different animal breeds

Intense light pulses (ILP) are an emerging processing technology, which has a potential to decontaminate food products. The light generated by ILP lamps consists of a continuum broadband spectrum from deep UV to the infrared, especially rich in UV range below 400 nm, which is germicidal. Evaluation of the effect of intense light pulses (ILP) on sensory quality of meat, game and poultry was performed using two kinds of red meat (beef and pork), two kinds of poultry (chicken and turkey) and three game meat samples (deer, rabbit and kangaroo). All the samples were treated with 1 and 5 light pulses (pulse duration of 300 μs and pulse intensity of 3.4 J/cm2) at a rate of one pulse per 2 seconds. Sensory quality changes induced by intense light pulses were different and depended on animal species, type of meat and ILP dose applied. Only the odour of all the meat, poultry and game samples suffered significant changes after the pulsed light treatment. Of all kinds of meat investigated only turkey received scores below the good quality grade after the treatment. Instrumental colour values remained unaffected in chicken and rabbit meat samples while higher doses of ILP significantly compromised both redness and yellowness only in pork and turkey meat.