The flavor profile of meat and its processed products is highly volatile and subject to significant changes during storage, processing, and transportation. It is therefore crucial to monitor the flavor of meat to evaluate sensory quality and protect consumer health and safety. Gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) has become increasingly popular due to its advantages of being nondestructive, rapid, and capable of trace detection. The analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) using this technique is continuously applied in the assessment of food freshness, origin traceability, and adulteration detection. GC-IMS has emerged as a promising tool for accurate monitoring and characterization of VOCs in food, particularly in the field of meat flavor analysis. Its applications include meat product authentication, adulteration detection, processing and storage-related flavor changes, and freshness monitoring. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the working principle of GC-IMS and its applications in meat flavor analysis, while exploring future trends and potential limitations associated with the technique.

The study investigated the effects of slurry ice (SI), different concentrations of chlorine dioxide (20, 40, 60 mg/L) or ozone (1, 2, and 3 mg/L) in SI on the microorganisms, physicochemical properties, and lipid and protein oxidation of prechilled chicken. The total viable counts (TVCs) and dominant spoilage bacteria in treated groups were significantly lower than in untreated chicken, and the effect of reducing bacteria was significantly improved with the increase of chlorine dioxide or ozone concentration in SI. Additionally, color, texture, TBARS, total sulfhydryl content, SDS‐PAGE, histology, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results showed that high concentrations of chlorine dioxide or ozone accelerated the oxidation of proteins and lipids to some extent. Based on the results, 40 mg/L of chlorine dioxide‐SI (SI‐40) or 3 mg/L of ozone‐SI (SI‐3) was recommended to treat the chicken carcass. These findings will provide a theoretical basis for the rapid chilling and preservation of whole chicken in the future.

This study evaluated the effects of deheading and intestinal removal on protein degradation and quality changes in chilled Litopenaeus vannamei. The results showed that shrimp subjected to heads removed (HR) and both heads and intestines removed (HIR) maintained better muscle integrity and sensory characteristics compared with intact (CK) and intestines removed (IR) shrimp. Furthermore, the HR and HIR treatments significantly inhibited the accumulation of total volatile basic nitrogen, trichloroacetic acid-soluble peptides, and bitter free amino acids (including His, Lys, Leu, Val, and Tyr), while maintaining consistently low activities of trypsin, cathepsin B, cathepsins B+L, and cathepsin D in the muscle throughout storage. Additionally, intrinsic fluorescence spectroscopy, SDS-PAGE, and microstructural analyses revealed that HR and HIR treatments significantly delayed muscle protein degradation and effectively preserved the structural integrity of muscle tissue. These findings suggest that quality deterioration of shrimp during chilled storage may be largely associated with the migration of endogenous proteases from the hepatopancreas in the cephalothorax into the muscle tissue.