Contamination and
Spoilage of Meat and
Meat Products
Lecture: 06
Course Teacher: Raquiba Sultana
Contamination
• Meats may be fresh, cured, dried or otherwise processed.
• The healthy inner flesh of meats has been reported to contain a
few or no microorganisms, although they have been found in
the lymph nodes, bone marrow, and even flesh.
• Normal slaughtering practices would remove the lymph nodes
from edible parts.
• The important contamination comes from external sources
during bleeding, handling, and processing.
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Source of Contamination
Slaughtering house: In slaughtering house yeasts and molds
are generally absent.
• Floor contains huge number of bacteria. Soil comes from the
field with the hooves of the cattle contains bacteria, yeasts,
and molds.
• Animal faeces contain large number of microbes including
coliforms and molds.
• During bleeding, skinning, and cutting, the main sources of
microorganisms are the exterior of the animal (hide, hooves
and hair) and the intestinal tract.
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Source of Contamination
Slaughtering house: Recently approved “humane” methods
of slaughter—mechanical, chemical, and electrical—have little effect on
contamination, but each is followed by sticking and bleeding, which can
introduce contamination.
• Knives, clothes, air, and hands and clothing of workers can serve as
intermediate sources of contaminants.
During the handling of the meat thereafter, contamination can come from
carts, boxes or other containers; other contaminated meat; air; and
personnel.
During marketing, special equipment such as grinders, sausage stuffers and
casings, and ingredients in special products, e.g., fillers and spices, may
add undesirable organisms in appreciable numbers.
Growth of microorganisms on surfaces touching the meats and on the
meats themselves increases their numbers.
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Frequently isolated microorganisms from
meats
• Fresh and refrigerated meat—
• bacteria (Acinetobacter, Moraxella, Pseudomonas,
Aeromonas, Alcaligenes, Micrococcus),
• molds (Cladosporium, Geotrichum, Sporptrichum,
Mucor, and Thamnidium),
• yeasts (Candida, Torulopsis, Debaryomyces, and
Rhodotorula)
• Processed and cured meats—
• bacteria (Lactobacillus and other lactic acid bacteria,
Acinetobacter, Bacillus, Micrococcus, Serratia, and
Staphylococcus),
• molds (Aspergillus, Penicillum, Rhizopus, and
Thamnidium),
• yeasts (Debaryomyces, Torula, Torulopsis, Trichosporon,
and Candida)
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Spoilage
• Raw meat is subject to change by its own
enzymes and by microbial action, and its fat may
be oxidized chemically.
• A moderate amount of autolysis is desired in the
tenderizing of beef by hanging, or aging, but is not
encouraged in most other raw meats.
• Autolytic changes include some proteolytic
action on muscle and connective tissues and
slight hydrolysis of fats.
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Spoilage
• The defect caused by excessive autolysis has
been called “souring”, an inexact term that is
applied to a variety of kinds of spoilage of food
and to in fact almost any kind that gives a sour
odor.
• Souring due to autolysis is difficult to separate
or distinguish from defects caused by microbial
action, especially from simple proteolysis.
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General Principles Underlying
Meat Spoilage
• Invasion of tissues by microorganisms
• Upon the death of the animal, invasion of the tissues
by contaminating microorganisms takes place.
• Factors that influence that invasion include the
following:
• The load in the gut of the animal
• The physiological condition of the animal
immediately before slaughter
• The method of killing and bleeding
• The rate of cooling
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Growth of microorganisms on meat
• The factors that influence the growth of microorganisms and hence the
kind of spoilage are-
The kind and amount of contamination with
microorganisms and the spread of these
organisms in the meat
The physical properties of the meat
Chemical properties of the meat
Availability of oxygen
Temperature
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General types of spoilage of meats
Spoilage under aerobic condition—Under
aerobic conditions bacteria may cause the
following:
Surface slime, which may be caused by species
of Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Moraxella,
Alcaligenes, Streptococcus etc.
Changes in color of meat pigments—
Leuconostoc reported to cause the greening of
sausage.
Changes in fats—Lipolytic species of
Pseudomonas and Achromobacter or by yeasts.
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General types of spoilage of
meats
Phosphorescence—This rather uncommon
defect is caused by phosphorescent or luminous
bacteria, e.g., Photobacterium spp., growing on
the surface of the meat.
Various surface colors due to pigmented
bacteria.
Off-odors and off tastes—Actinomycetes may
be responsible for a musty or earthy flavor.
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Aerobic growth of molds
• Aerobic growth of molds may cause the following:
Stickiness
Whiskers
Black spot
Green patches
Decomposition of fats
Off odors and off tastes
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Spoilage under anaerobic condition
Souring: The term implies a sour odor and perhaps
taste. This could be caused by fomic, acetic, butyric,
propionic and higher fatty acids or other organic
acids. Souring can result form:
a. Action of the meat’s own enzymes during aging and
ripening,
b. Anaerobic production of fatty acids or lactic acid by
bacterial actions or
c. Proteolysis without putrefaction caused by
facultative or anaerobic bacteria are sometimes
called “stinking sour fermentation”.
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Spoilage under anaerobic
condition
Putrefaction: it is the anaerobic decomposition of
protein with the production of foul-smelling
compounds, such as H2S, mercaptans, indole, ammonia
and amines. It usually is caused by species of
Clostridium, but facultative bacteria may cause
putrefaction. Chiefly in the genera Pseudomonas and
Alcaligenes. Also, some species of Proteus are
putrefactive.
Taint: It is still more inexact word applied to any off
taste or off odor. The term bone taint of meats refers to
either souring or putrefaction next to the bones,
especially in hams. Usually it means putrefaction.
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Preservation
• The preservation of meats usually is accomplished by a
combination of preservative methods.
• The fact that most meats are very good culture media—
high in moisture, nearly neutral in pH, and high in
nutrients—coupled with the fact that some organisms
may be in the lymph nodes, bones, and muscles, and
contamination with spoilage organisms, which is
almost unavoidable, make the preservation of meats
more difficult than that of the most kinds of foods.
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Asepsis
• Asepsis, or keeping microorganisms away from
meats as much as practicable during slaughtering
and handling, permits easier preservation by any
method.
• Asepsis begins with avoidance, as much as possible,
of contamination from the exterior of the animal.
• Once the meat is contaminated with
microorganisms, their removal is difficult. Gross
soil may be washed from surfaces, but the wash
water may add organisms.
• Films used to warp meats keep out bacteria and
effect the growth of those already there.
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Use of Heat
• The canning of meat is a very specialized technique
in that the procedure varies considerably with the
meat product to be preserved.
• Most meat products are low-acid foods that are good
culture media for any surviving bacteria.
• Rates of heat penetration range from fairly rapid in
meat soups to very slow in tightly packed meats and
in pastes.
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Use of Heat
• Commercially canned meats can be divided into two
groups on the basis of the heat processing used:
(a) meats that are heat-processed in an attempt to
make the can contents sterile or at least
“commercially sterile”, as far canned meats for shelf
storage in retail stores, and
(b) meats that are heated enough to kill part of the
spoilage organisms but must be kept refrigerated to
prevent spoilage.
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Use Of Irradiation
• Irradiation with ultra violate rays has been used in
conjunction with chilling storage to lengthen the
keeping time.
• It has been employed chiefly on large, hung pieces
of meat in plant storage rooms.
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Use Of Low Temperature
• More meat is preserved by the use of low
temperatures than by any other method, and much
more by chilling than by freezing.
Chilling:
• Modern packing-house methods involve chilling
meat promptly and rapidly to temperatures near
freezing and chilling storage at only slightly above
the freezing point. Storage temperatures vary from -
1.4 to 2.2C, with the lower temperatures preferred.
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• The time limit for chilling storage of beef is about
30 days, depending on the numbers of
microorganisms present, the temperature, and the
relative humidity.
Freezing:
• Most meat sold in retail stores has not been frozen,
but freezing often is used to preserve meats during
shipment over long distances or for holding until
times of shortage and, of considerable quantities of
meat now are frozen in home freezers. The
preservation of frozen meats is increasingly
effective as the storage temperature drops from -
12.2 toward -28.9C.
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Preservation by
Drying
• Drying meats for preservation has been practiced for
centuries.
• Some types of sausage are preserved primarily by
their dryness.
• Organisms may contaminate the dried ham during
storage and the slices during cutting and packing.
• Meat for drying should be of good bacteriological
quality, without previous development of appreciable
numbers of microorganisms or of undesirable flavor.
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Use of
Preservatives
• The utilization of a controlled atmosphere
containing added carbon-dioxide or ozone in the
chilling storage is well established.
• Preservation by heavy salting is an old method that
usually results in an inferior product.
• Ordinarily salting is combined with curing and
smoking in order to be effective.
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Curing
• The curing of meats is limited to beef and pork, either
ground meat or certain cuts such as hams, butts, sides,
loins, bellies of hogs and the hams, and leg muscles of
beef.
• Sodium chloride, or common salt, is used primarily as
a preservative and flavoring agent.
• Sugar adds flavor and also serves as an energy source
for nitrate-reducing bacteria in the curing solution or
pickle.
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Curing
• Sodium nitrate is indirectly a color fixative and is
bacteriostatic in acid solution, especially against
anaerobes.
• Sodium nitrite is the source of nitric oxide, which
is the real color fixative and has some
bacteriostatic effects in acid solution.
• Most of the preservative effects of the curing
agent, then, is attributed to the sodium chloride,
with some bacteriostatic effects from the nitrite and
little effect from the nitrate.
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Smoking:
•Use of wood smoke is used for preservation.
•Smoke adds desired flavors to the food and aid preservation.
•Older methods of curing and smoking, where high salt
concentration were used in curing; greater drying and
incorporation of preservative chemicals was accomplished in
smoking, produced hams, dried beef, etc., that would keep
without refrigeration.
Spices
•Spices and condiments added to meat loaves and sausages
are not in concentrations high enough to be preservative, but
they may add their effect to those of the other preservative
factors.
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Antibiotics
• Antibiotics can be used successfully in meats to prolong
storage life at chilling or higher temperatures.
• The antibiotics most often recommended have been
chlortetracycline, oxytetracycline, nisin, and
chloramphenicol.
• The antibiotics may be applied to meats in various ways:
(1) antibiotic may be fed to the animal over a long period,
(2) it may be fed more intensively for a short period before
slaughter,
(3) it may be infused into the carcass or into parts of it, or
(4) it may be applied to the surface of pieces of meat or
mixed comminuted meat.
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