INTRODUCTION

A) MEAT PIGMENT FORMATION

Meat is the edible part of animal or bird slaughtered for human consumption. Fresh meat is meat
that has not been treated in any way other than refrigeration, with or without preservative packaging,
to maintain for human consumption (Rhea, 2009). Meat colour may indicate microbial spoilage, but it is
not a good indicator of nutritional quality. Colour play important role in order to attract consumer to
buy it. The red colour contain in meat usually caused from myoglobin which is the pigment that imparts
the red colour of meat. Microbial spoilage can be indicated by the colour of the meat. Raw red meats
from healthy animals inevitably will be contaminated with bacteria. Those bacteria will include
organisms that can grow on the product to cause spoilage, if the meat is not frozen, and may include
enteric pathogens that can cause disease in humans (Nottingham, 1982). Meat colour measurements
involve two basic methods which are human visual appraisal and instrumental analyses.
HYPOTHESIS

A) To identify factor associated with the discolouration of fresh meat.

B)

MATERIALS / APPARATUS

A) MEAT PIGMENT FORMATION

I) In fresh meat pigments experiment, the material used to conduct it were meat, chopping
board, knife, spatula, white paper plate, saran wrap, gloves, refrigerator and label sticker.

PROCEDURE

A) MEAT PIGMENT FORMATION

I) First of all, the meat was taken out from the packaging and was weighed about 70 gram of
ground meat using the analytical balance. Then, the meat was placed on chopping board in order to
shape it into 1cm thickness as beef burger patty, then placed it on white paper plate and the colour of
meat was observed near the edge and near the centre of the meat. The observation was based on the
difference of colour that occurred on the meat, which are due to the amount of oxygen that entered the
differences parts of the meat. After the observation, the burger patty meat was cut off of two inch thick
patties, one of the meat are wrapped using saran warp which is oxygen impermeable while another half
was left unwrapped which is oxygen permeable. Next, both patties was placed on a white paper plate
and put into the refrigerator to observe the colour changes over the next 2 hours.

DISCUSSION

Regarding for fresh meat pigments, there are two observations that have been carried out
which are before refrigeration and after refrigeration. The optimum temperature for chilled storage of
meat is the lowest temperature that can be maintained without freezing the product, which are 0-4 oC.
The parts of meat that have been observed in both experiments were near the centre and near the
edge. Before refrigerate, both meat showed the same results which are reddish in colour. The meat was
cut in two parts, where the one part will be wrapped in Saran wrap, while the other one is unwrap.
Saran wrap is the wrap which is oxygen impermeable. After refrigerate for two hours, the meat in the
saran wrap showed reddish colour which is remain unchanged from the current observation. While for
the meat that was unwrap, it showed that the meat became red pale and dry in texture. For further
explainations, in fresh meat it is principally found in three basic states which are deoxymyoglobin,
oxymyoglobin and metmyoglobin (Mancini, 2005). The colour of the meat comes mainly from the
pigment of myoglobin. In the fresh meat which are wrapped with Saran wrap, there is no presence of
oxygen, which called as deoxymyoglobin. It is leading state imparting a purplish red colour typically
associated with vacuum packaged meat or with fresh pieces immediately after cutting. For the meat
that exposed to the oxygen, the formation of oxymyoglobin occurred and caused the development of
the bright cherry red colour. For metmyoglobin situation, the myoglobin had been oxidized which
change the colour of meat surface turns to brown (F. J. Francis & F. M. Clydesdale, 1975).
CONCLUSION

A) I) Thus, it can be concluded that the main factor associated with the discolouration of fresh
meat is the presence of oxygen, is very important because meat colour is mainly determined by
the content of myoglobin. Meat with higher myoglobin content is redder in colour. The
hypothesis of this experiment is accepted as the expected result is directly proportional to the
theoretical result. The application in this experiment can be used in the grocery store, the Saran
wrap can be used to protect meat form contact with air and keep the meat fresh so that it will
gives the purple red colour that can attract the customers to buy the meat.