Gill C O
Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand (Inc), Hamilton, New Zealand.
J Food Prot. 1983 May;46(5):444-452. doi: 10.4315/0362-028X-46.5.444.
Microbiological processes by which meat develops qualities unacceptable to consumers vary with the composition of the meat and spoilage microflora. Composition of the spoilage microflora is affected by meat composition and storage conditions. Aerobic spoilage microfloras are usually dominated by pseudomonads. With this type of microflora, spoilage occurs when glucose in meat is no longer sufficient for the requirements of the spoilage microflora and the bacteria start to degrade amino acids. When meat is deficient in glucose, spoilage becomes evident while bacterial numbers are relatively small. Anaerobic microfloras are usually dominated by lactobacilli which produce spoilage by the slow accumulation of volatile organic acids. Meat of high utimate pH packaged anaerobically spoils rapidly because the high pH allows anaerobic growth of bacterial species of higher spoilage potential than the lactobacilli. Before overt spoilage develops, the spoilage status of meat can be accurately assessed from the bacterial numbers on meat only when there is assumption or knowledge of meat composition, storage conditions and the types of bacteria present. Methods for estimating spoilage which depend upon detection of products of amino acid degradation have little predictive value as such products will only be present after attack on amino acids has commenced and are irrelevant to spoilage under anaerobic conditions. Estimation of the concentrations of other spoilage products may be the only method applicable to assessment of incipient spoilage of meat stored anaerobically. It is, therefore, unlikely that any single test can give unequivocal information on meat quality under all circumstances, but rapid tests for meat quality could be of value for specific commercial purposes. provided such tests are appropriate to the circumstances and the inherent limitations of any test are recognized.
肉类产生消费者无法接受的品质变化的微生物过程因肉的成分和腐败微生物群而异。腐败微生物群的组成受肉的成分和储存条件的影响。需氧腐败微生物群通常以假单胞菌为主。在这种类型的微生物群中，当肉中的葡萄糖不再足以满足腐败微生物群的需求，且细菌开始降解氨基酸时，就会发生腐败。当肉中缺乏葡萄糖时，在细菌数量相对较少时腐败就会变得明显。厌氧微生物群通常以乳酸菌为主，它们通过挥发性有机酸的缓慢积累而产生腐败。最终pH值高的肉在厌氧包装下会迅速腐败，因为高pH值允许比乳酸菌具有更高腐败潜力的细菌进行厌氧生长。在明显的腐败出现之前，只有在假设或了解肉的成分、储存条件和存在的细菌类型的情况下，才能根据肉上的细菌数量准确评估肉的腐败状态。依靠检测氨基酸降解产物来估计腐败的方法几乎没有预测价值，因为这类产物只有在氨基酸被攻击开始后才会出现，并且与厌氧条件下的腐败无关。估计其他腐败产物的浓度可能是适用于评估厌氧储存肉类初期腐败的唯一方法。因此，在所有情况下，不太可能有任何单一测试能提供关于肉质的明确信息，但针对特定商业目的，肉质快速测试可能有价值，前提是此类测试适合具体情况且认识到任何测试的固有局限性。
