Quality changes in refrigerated stored minced pork wrapped with plastic cling film and the effect of glucose supplementation.

Meat spoilage greatly depends on meat composition and storage conditions. Microbial and biochemical changes in minced pork (100-g portions) wrapped with a polyvinyl chloride film during a 4-day refrigerated storage were studied. As glucose is the first substrate used by spoilage bacteria and when it is depleted bacteria could generate undesirable volatiles, the effect of the addition of glucose to minced meat was also studied. Three treatments were used: control (C), without added glucose, and low and high glucose concentration (L and H), 150mg and 750mg of glucose in 100g of meat, respectively. Spoilage bacteria, pH, redox potential, colour, basic volatile nitrogen, glucose, organic acids, and volatiles were analyzed in both recently prepared and stored pork samples. Storage resulted in increased levels of lactic acid bacteria and glucose-derived short chain alkyl volatiles, and a decrease in redox potential and volatile aldehyde levels. The addition of glucose to meat did not affect the biochemical characteristics of stored minced pork.