Physicochemical characteristics and microbial safety of defatted bovine heart and its lipid extracted with supercritical-CO2 and solvent extraction

The demand for healthier meat and meat products with low fat is increasing rapidly to reduce cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. Bovine heart was defatted using supercritical-CO2 (SC-CO2) at a constant temperature (40 °C) with three different pressures (20, 30, and 40 MPa) and using solvent extraction. The objective of this study was to produce a low-fat meat ingredient such as defatted bovine heart (DBH), and investigate its physicochemical characteristics and microbial safety, including the extraction yield and fatty acid composition of bovine heart lipid. SC-CO2 treatment at high pressure results in higher removal of fat i.e. a higher extraction yield (93.60%). The DBH prepared using SC-CO2 at 30 and 40 MPa had significantly higher proteins (82.07 and 82.67 g/100 g DBH, respectively), amino acids (80.39 and 79.05 g/100 g DBH, respectively), and minerals (2910 and 2901 mg/100 g DBH, respectively) and with lower microbial contents compared to those of the control and other DBHs. SC-CO2-extracted lipid had significantly higher unsaturated fatty acids (53.09 g/100 g fatty acids) than the control (45.62) and hexane-extracted lipid (44.65). SC-CO2-treatment leads to higher fat removal without deterioration of nutritional quality and significantly reduces the microbial content in defatted meals.