Development of meat powder from beef byproduct as value-added food ingredient

Food waste accounts for $161 billion in loss in the US. Meat animal waste and meat products are major contributors to food loss. This study was designed to develop and optimize the process of spray-drying method and evaluate the potential of beef tongue powder as a value-added, multi-purpose food ingredient. To develop and optimize the process of spray-drying, beef tongue was skinned, chopped, micronized, filtered to generate a homogeneous meat slurry. After spray drying, the meat powder properties were characterized for proximate composition, lipid composition, and proteomic profile were evaluated. Our findings indicate that beef tongue powder can be developed by spray-drying and that the beef tongue powder retains both protein and fat content from the raw tongue. Additionally, the results show the presence of native proteins and the retention of unsaturated fatty acids, an abundance of unsaturated fatty acids, and other nutritional elements that could make it a high-quality functional food ingredient. The beef tongue powder will provide a sustainable solution for a meat byproduct to be converted into a value-added food ingredient with potential nutritional and functional application.