Beef muscle isolation has no detrimental effect on premium ground beef programs

- Removing muscles from beef chuck has no negative effect on ground chuck quality.
- Oxidative indicators of ground chuck quality increase over time.
- Minolta a* values can be used to predict TBARS after day 3 of refrigerated storage.

This experiment evaluated whether isolating certain muscles from the chuck for retail sale and excluding them from ground beef mix changes the number of days that ground chuck is acceptable to consumers. Chucks were harvested from twenty-four beef steers, and were allocated to either traditional or innovative fabrication methods. Resulting ground beef patties were stored in retail simulation conditions for 7 days to determine color and oxidative stability. Raw patties were analyzed for thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), oxymyoglobin concentration, objective color by Minolta Chromameter, and by a trained sensory panel for odor, color and percent discoloration. No differences (P > 0.05) were observed between traditional and innovative style patties for TBARS, sensory odor or color, or oxymyoglobin concentration. Minolta Chromameter readings revealed more substantial fading (P < 0.05) in traditional patties compared with innovative style patties. This study demonstrated that removing certain muscles from the ground chuck mix does not cause detrimental consequences in resulting ground chuck patties.