EFFECTS OF PAPAIN ON BEEF PALATABILITY TRAITS

Tenderness, juiciness and flavour are the major palatability attributes of meat. Because tenderness of beef meat is considered the most important factor in determining the consumer eating satisfaction, we focused our research on improving beef meat tenderness by using exogenous enzyme papain. Papain was added in injection brine and then the beef meat cuts were injected with different percents of brine: 5, 10, 15 and 20% (volume/weight (v/w)). Experimental data indicate that the papain determines improving of beef meat tenderness and increasing of hydroxyproline and free amino acids levels in tissue. Rigidity index, used as a meat tenderness indicator, has been significantly higher for papain-treated beef meat cuts when compared with the control samples. The advantage of using papain as tenderiser has been also confirmed by the sensorial tests of beef meat palatability traits.