QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF REINDEER MEAT II II ji 'I '1 I, I / I R.B. SW<}J1son1,M.P. Penfield2, D. MitchelF, M.J. Reimann2, and H.D. Loveday2 lDivision of Ht:sourct:s Managt:ment Agricultural and Fort:shy EXpt::rirnentStalion. Univt:rsily of AJaska Fairbanks 2Dept. Food Technology arid Sc:'iefll'e Agricultural Experimcnt Statiun 'lbe Uniwrsity ofTt:nnessee .", Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station School of Agriculture and. . Land Resources Management. University of Alaska Fairbanks Circular 78 February 1990
Transcript
QUALITY ASSESSMENTOF REINDEER MEAT II
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R.B. SW<}J1son1,M.P. Penfield2, D. MitchelF,M.J. Reimann2, and H.D. Loveday2
lDivision of Ht:sourct:s Managt:mentAgricultural and Fort:shy EXpt::rirnentStalion.
Agricultural and Forestry Experiment StationSchool of Agriculture and. .
Land Resources Management.University of Alaska Fairbanks
Circular 78 February 1990
Introduction
HistOrically, sales of exotic meats have beenlimited only by supply. As supply has increased inrecent years, national and international exotic gamemarkets have grown rapidly. In the United States,growth has occurred primarily in the restaurant sec-tion, although over-the-counter sales have also In-creased.
The Alaskan reindeer industry is exploring thepotential of expanding its meat sales as well as antlersales. Meat production increased from 320,000pounds in 1987 to 432;000 pounds in 1988. This pro-duction increase is reflected in a 27 percent increasein dollar value (Alaska Crop and Livestock ReportingService, 1989). Under current management proce-dures, potential meat production has been estimatedat 500.000 pounds (Pearson and Lewis. 1988). Anyfuture market expansion is likely to occur in urbanAlaska and in areas outside the state (Jones. 1988).
Evidence exists that some consumers are willing
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to pay premium prices for reindeer. In one specialitymeat market. New Yorkers paid $14.97 per pound in1987. Prices of reindeer in speciality food catalogsrange from $12.00 to $45.00 per pound (Jones, 1988).Consumers are placing less emphasis than in the paston cost as the primary deciding factor in food pur-chases. However, these consumers do expect to obtainvalue for each dollar spent (:t4.C,N1,Jtt,1988). Value hasbecome synonymous with quauty.
Quality has been identified as the major key tosuccess and growth in today's food industry. "If theconsumer's demand for quality is not met, loyalty willbe transferred to another competitive product" (Martin,1988). Scandinavian and Canadian reindeer and NewZealand red deer compete with Alaskan reindeer innational and international markets. Thus, successfulentry and maintenance of market share will be de-pendent on the quality characteristics of the Alaskanreindeer meat. Nutritional content and safety areamong the quality characteristics that are increasinglyImportant to consumers (McNutt, 1988). Becausegrowth of meat sales beyond the traditional markets inrural Alaska h~ been hampered by the decreasedmarketability of the reindeer forequarter (Jones, 1988),this primal (wholesale) cut was used in this study.The forequarter comprises approximately 45 percent of .
the carcass weight (Zhigunov, 1961).
Materials and Methods
Six representative reindeer forequarters wereobtained from commercial sources in March 1989.The forequarters. which had been harvested during the
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spring handling on the Seward Peninsula, wereshipped under typical conditions to The University ofTennessee for the study. The samples were.allowed tothaw for 48 hours at 2 degrees C prior to analyses.Swab tests were conducted to determine the AerobicPlate Count (APe)on the forequarter surfaces.
Composite samples from the forequarters wereanalyzed for moisture and fat levels (AOAC,1984).Approximate protein content was calculated by differ-ence. Fatty acid composition was also determined(AOCS,1975).
Results and DIscussion
Nutritional quaUty
Nutritional attributes of food products havealtered food selection and consumption patterns asevidenced by the decreased consumption of domesticred meats and increased consumption of fish andpoultry. Fish and poultry are usually lower in total fatas well as saturated fat content. These changes havebeen linked to increasing consumer awareness of therelationship between fat consumption and health(Breidenstein, 1988). . '.
Fat, moisture, and protein content of the rein-deer forequarters are shown in Table 1; USDA (1975.1983, 1986) data for similar beef, pork, and Iamb cutsare included for comparison. Reindeer had a proteincontent that ranged from 2.7 to 7.6 percent higherthan that reported for domestic red meats. The fatcontent of the reindeer forequarter varied with retailcut. The shoulder portion had little external fat cover,
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Table l-CompositioD of soft tissue- from reindeerand domestic redmeats.
.Soft Ussue Includes lean plus fat. bMean:f: SD from 2 replJcates;samples from Alaskan reindeer forequarters. cPrtmarlly shank and ribsoft tissue wtth small amounts of shoulder meat. df)om USDA. 1986.
CJ4TomUSDA, 1983. 'From USDA. 1975.
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which resulted in a very low fat content and a highermoisture content. The composite samples whichincluded soft tissue taken primarily from the ribs andshank. exhibited a fat content approximately 2.5times that of the shoulder muscle. These higher fat
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Ms:a1 Moisture f%} Fat f%} Protetn f%}
Retndeer flean with fat. raw}bShoulder muscle 74.72+.12 3.56+.08 22
samples Included the external fat which surroundedthe ribs as well as the Intramuscular fat present.
Fat content of the domestic red meats differedwith species and retail cut. Reindeer shoulder musclehad less fat than did the lean cuts of the beef chuckblade roasts, lean pork shoulder, and lamb cuts. Thecomposite reindeer sample had considerably less fatthan did beef chuck with fat and beef short ribs.
The reindeer fatty acid profile rrable 2) revealedlower levels of unsaturated fatty acids than are foundin domestic red meat animals (Dugan, 1987). The rela-tive proportion of unsaturated fatty acids was increasedwhen external fat was Incorporated. In this compositesample, the reindeer fatty acid composition, like that ofthe domestic red meat animals, was rich in stearic, pal-imitic, and oleic acids. Although the shoulder muscle,
Table 2-percentage of selected fatty acids In rein-deer forequarters.
which contained only intramuscular fat. was also highin these fatty acids. myristic was present in the great-est quantity. Longer chained fatty acids also com-prised a greater percentage of the fatty acids present inthis lean sample. Among domestic red meat animals.fatty acid"composition is influenced by animal age, dietand environment (Dugan, 1987). Similar effects onreindeer fatty acid composiUQD are likely to occur.
Despite the higher saturated fat content of rein-deer. consumers who eat reindeer rather than anequal-sized portion of beef, lamb or pork will consumemuch lower levels of saturated fats due to the lowertotal fat content. Indeed. the saturated fat content ofthe reindeer was within the same range reported forpoultry and fish (Linscheer and Vergroesen, 1988).Therefore, the inherent nutritional attributes of rein-deer should appeal to health-conscious consumers.
MIcrobiological safety
Safety. particularly microbiological safety, likenutritional content has become an essential qualityfactor for all foodstuffs (McNutt, 1988). Recently, con-sumer concerns about the safety of muscle food prod-ucts have led to the introduction of legislation to re-quire mandatory inspection of seafood as well asdomestic red meats and poultry. The exotic animalinspection regulation has also been extended to rein-deer. Consumers want some assurance that the prod-uct available for purchase is safe and wholesome.
Meat is essentially sterile at the time of slaugh-ter. However, the necessary skinning, evisceration, andcutting exposes the carcass to large numbers of natu-rally occQrrtng microorganisms. The level of contami-
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nation differs with the processing and handling proce-dures employed (Niven. 1987).
Sla~ghter of Alaskan reindeer occurs underarctic field conditions. After the reindeer are killed.the carcass is split. and internal organs are removed.Typically. the hide is also removed. The carcass ~s,allowed to hang for one to 12 hours prior to wrappingin gauze for shipment to Nome for final processing andsale. Only the fmal cutting and sales are completed inan indoor facility.
Aerobic Plate Count (APe). an indication of thedegree of contamination present. is reported in Table3. Low levels of microorganisms were found on thereindeer forequarters (2.34 log APC/in2 to 3.39 logAPC/in~). These values are considerably lower thanthe typical range of 4.8 log APC/in2 to 7.8 log APC/in2from beef (Ayres.et al, 1980) The low arctic air tem-
Table 3- MIcrobiological counts on selected reindeerforequarter surfaces.
peratures (usually around -23 degrees C) inhibited thegrowth of bacterta on the fresh meat. The relativelyquick freezing of the carcasses further limited thegrowth of microorganisms by reducing water activity.There~o.re, the field-harvesting techniques used yieldeda product that was safe and wholesome.
Concluding Remarks
Two attributes important in the consumer'sassessment of quality were studied. Although con-sumers may have questions about microbiological con-tamination of field-harvested reindeer, the forequartersstudied were safe and wholesome. From a nutritionalperspective, Alaskan reindeer should appeal to health-conscious consumers who wish to reduce their fatintake while consuming red meat. The forequartersevaluated were representative of animals harvestedduring the spring handling; different results may befound if animals slaughtered during handlings at othertimes of the year were studied.
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References
AOAC. 1984. "Official Methods of Analysis," 14th ed.Association of Offical Analytical Chemists, Washing-ton. DC.
AOC5. 1975. "Offictal and Tentative Methods of the'American on Chemists Society." American on Chem-
. ists Society. Champaign, IL.
Alaska Crop and Uvestock Reporting Service. 1989."Alaska Agricultural Statistics." National StatisticalReporting Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.Palmer, AK.
Ayres, J.C., Mundt. J.O. and Sandine. W.E. 1980.Meat and meat p.roducts, In: "Microbiology of Foods. II
W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco..Breidenstein, B.C. 1988. Changes in consumer atti-tudes toward red meat and their effect on marketingstrategy. Food Technol. 42(1): 112.
Dugan, L.R., Jr. 1987. Chemistry of animal tissues.Part 2. Fats. In: 'ibe Science of Meat and Meat Pro~-ucts," 3rd ed. Price, J.F. and Schweigert, B.S., eds.,Food and Nutrition Press, Inc., Westport, CT.
. Jones, C.. ed. 1988. Summary report: Alaska rein-deer marketing conference. School of Agriculture andLand Resources Management and Cooperative Exten-sion Service, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
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-Unscheer, W.G. and Vergroesen, A.J. 1988. Upids. In:"Modem Nutrition in Health and Disease," 7th ed.Shils, M.E. and Young, V.R, eds., Lea & Febiger,Philadelphia. .
Martin, ~; 1988. Contaminants in relation to the qual-Ity of seafood. Food Technol. 42(12): 104.
McNutt, K. 1988. Consumer attitudes and the qualitycontrol function. Food Technol. 42(12): 94.
Nlven"C.F., Jr. 1987. MIcrobiologyand parasitology ofmeat. Part 1. MIcrobiology.In: "'1beScience of Meatand Meat Products," 3rd ed. Price, J.F. and Schweig-ert. B.S., eds.. Food and Nutrition Press. Inc.,.West-port, CT. '
Pearson, R.W. and Lewis; C.E. 1988. The local agricul-tural industry in Alaska since statehood. ,.Presentationat the Annual meeting of the Assoc. Amer. Geogra-phers, Portland, OR
USDA. 1986. "Composition of foods. Beef Products-Raw, Processed, Prepared." Agricultural Handbook 8-13. Human Nutrition Information Services, UnitedStates Dept. Agriculture. Washington, DC.
USDA. 1983. "Composition of foods. Pork Products-Raw, Processed, Prepared, "Agricultural Handbook 8-10. Human Nutrition Information Services, UnitedStates Dept. Agriculture, Washington. DC. .
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.USDA. 1975. MNutritiveValue of American Foods,"Agriculture Handbook 456. Agricultural ResearchService, United States Dept. Agriculture, Washington,DC.
Zhtgunov. P.S.. ed. 1961. Slaughter of reindeer. pr1:-,mary processing. storage and transportation of theproducts. In: MReindeerHusbandry" (translated fromthe Russian). Published for United States Dept. of theInterior and National Science Foundation. Washington,DC. Published by Israel Program for Scientific Transla-tions.
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Agricultural and Forestry Experiment StationSchool of Agriculture and
Land Resources ManagementUniversity of Alaska Fairbanks
James V. Drew, Dean and Director
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