Vol. 11, Special Issue 8 (2022)

Author(s):
Onkar Nath Bhaskar, Gopal Patra, Subhasis Biswas, Debashis Bhattacharyya and Susma Kumari

Abstract:
Nowadays, health conscious consumers are concerned about fat content, nutritive value, wholesomeness, freshness, leanness, juiciness, flavor, and tenderness of meat and meat products. Emu meat is said to be an excellent diet for people suffering from heart ailments. The meat quality traits viz. physico-chemical parameters like pH, water holding capacity, thiobarbituric acid value, fibre diameter, proximate composition, microbiological analysis and sensory evaluation were studied. The physico-chemical parameters revealed a gradual decrease in pH from 0 day (5.69) to 14th day (5.40) of storage period. The progressive fall in pH during the periods of storage is normal. The water holding capacity increases with increase in storage periods. Also, there was a highly significant difference noticed in the water holding capacity of emu meat in different storage periods. The Thiobarbituric acid number increased significantly at different storage periods. The observations revealed significant increase in fibre diameter as increase in 3rd day. The fibre diameter decreased gradually during the storage periods resulting in increased tenderness. There was increased percentage of moisture and protein observed during storage period. The fat percentages were decreased during storage period. The emu meat on the 0 day exhibited higher scores for all the sensory parameters; however, it gradually decreases as the storage period increases. Decreased scores for tenderness and juiciness given on the 14th day by the sensory panelists could be interpreted as the storage period become longer; there was a loss of juiciness of the meat with loss in moisture.