In this study, we aimed to investigate the meat quality characteristics, bioactive compound content, and antioxidant activity during refrigerated storage of breast meat of Arbor Acres broilers (carcass weight: 1.1 kg, raised for 35 D) obtained from a conventional farm (BCF, n = 30) and an animal welfare farm (BAF, n = 30) in Korea. The BCF and BAF did not differ in their proximate composition, color, water-holding capacity, creatine, creatinine, and carnosine contents. However, the shear force value was significantly higher in BAF than in BCF (P < 0.05). The 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) levels in BCF on days 7 and 9 were significantly higher than those in BAF (P < 0.001). During storage, the total volatile basic nitrogen (VBN) content of BAF was significantly lower, except on day 1. The fatty acid composition of samples was not affected by the storage period, however, saturated fatty acid and unsaturated fatty acid contents did differ among the types of farm systems (P < 0.05). Although the creatine, creatinine, and carnosine contents in BAF and BCF did not differ significantly, the carnosine and creatinine contents decreased with the increase in storage period (P < 0.05). The anserine content of BAF was significantly higher than that of BCF throughout storage. Superoxide dismutase activity was not affected by the type of farm system but was affected by storage period. Overall, BAF showed lower pH, microorganism, TBARS, and VBN values, and higher anserine contents than BCF. These findings can serve as reference data for the evaluation of chicken meat quality of broilers raised in animal welfare farm and conventional farm.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relation among the quality and freshness traits of chicken breast meat during storage for 12 d at 4°C. In a

This study investigated the effect of dietary astaxanthin (AST) on the meat quality, antioxidant status, and immune response of chickens exposed to heat stress. Four hundred and eighty male broilers were assigned to four treatments including AST0, AST20, AST40, and AST80 with 0, 20, 40, and 80 ppm astaxanthin supplementation levels, respectively. There was a linear decrease of malondialdehyde (MDA) in leg muscle. Catalase and superoxide dismutase levels in the plasma were linearly increased. There was a linear increase in the level of total antioxidant capacity in the leg muscle. The 3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate reducing activity of leg muscle was significantly increased in the AST80 treatment. The AST40 treatment showed an increase in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging capacity of leg muscles. Breast meat redness and yellowness were linearly increased. The astaxanthin-supplemented treatments exhibited lower drip loss and MDA concentration of leg muscle compared with the AST0 treatment at days 3 and 9 of storage. Supplementation of 40 or 80 mg/kg astaxanthin significantly decreased heat shock protein (HSP)27, HSP70, tumor necrosis factor alpha, and interleukin-6 expression in the livers. The feather corticosterone was significantly lower in the astaxanthin-supplemented treatments than in the AST0 treatment. In conclusion, astaxanthin decreased the hyperthermic stress level and improved meat quality, and antioxidant status of chickens exposed to heat stress.

This study presents a system for assessing the freshness of meat with electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in the frequency range of 125 Hz to 128 kHz combined with an image classifier for non-destructive and low-cost applications. The freshness standard is established by measuring the aerobic plate count (APC), 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), and composition analysis (crude fat, crude protein, and moisture) values of the microbiological detection to represent the correlation between EIS and meat freshness. The EIS and images of meat are combined to predict the freshness with the Adaboost classification and gradient boosting regression algorithms. As a result, when the elapsed time of beef storage for 48 h is classified into three classes, the time prediction accuracy is up to 85% compared to prediction accuracy of 56.7% when only images are used without EIS information. Significantly, the relative standard deviation (RSD) of APC and TBARS value predictions with EIS and images datum achieves 0.890 and 0.678, respectively.

In this study, we evaluated the nutritional value and antioxidant activity of black goat loin (BGL) and black goat rump (BGR) meat. We evaluated the proximate compositions, collagen and mineral contents, and fatty acid compositions of BGL and BGR with respect to their nutritional value. The levels of bioactive compounds such as L-carnitine, creatine, creatinine, carnosine, and anserine were also measured. The ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 2,2-azinobis (3-ethyl-benzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) radical scavenging, and oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC) were assessed to evaluate the antioxidant activity of BGL and BGR. BGR showed higher collagen, Fe, Ca, P, and Na contents than did BGL (p < 0.05). Notably, the Ca/P ratio was high in both BGR and BGL (1.82 and 1.54, respectively), thus satisfying the recommendation that the Ca/P ratio is between 1 and 2. BGL showed a significantly higher content of desirable fatty acids (stearic acid and total unsaturated fatty acids) than did BGR. In addition, the levels of creatine, carnosine, and anserine in BGL were higher than those in BGR (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the antioxidant activity between BGL and BGR, as assessed by FRAP [both 15.92 mM Trolox equivalent (TE) per gram of DM], ABTS (12.51 and 12.90 mM TE/g DM, respectively), and ORAC (101.25 and 99.06 mM TE/g DM, respectively) assays. This was a primary study conducted to evaluate the differences in nutritional value and antioxidant activity between loin and rump cuts of black goat meat. Our results provide fundamental knowledge that can help understand the properties of black goat meat.