Prevention of lipid oxidation and warmed-over flavor utilizing antioxidants and the tumbling process of precooked roast beef

The major problem plaguing the acceptance of cooked roast beef is the common occurrence of off-flavors. Warmed-over flavor (WOF) causes the precooked beef roasts or steaks to be unpopular and they are currently not available at the retail level. The serial experiments conducted in this research were to evaluate the effect of raw material, three antioxidants (phosphate, ascorbic acid and tocopherol) and tumbling on roast beef. The desirability of the roast beef was determined from a quality acceptance standpoint during refrigerated storage. The oxidative stability and WOF of electrically stimulated (ES) precooked roast beef was the same as non electrically stimulated (nonES) sample up to 4-days of refrigerated storage. When injecting no antioxidants, the tumbling process promotes lipid oxidation in precooked roast beef. The use of 0.5% sodium tripolyphosphate was an effective strategy to chelate catalysts. Under nonvacuum tumbling, ascorbic acid acted as an oxygen scavenger. The addition of tocopherol with the tumbling process was effective in retarding lipid oxidation. However, the combination of the three antioxidants effectively maintained oxidative stability. Therefore, the addition of the three antioxidants is important for inhibiting lipid oxidation when raw materials for roast beef are subjected to the tumbling process. Also, there was no significant difference in lipid oxidation among non-tumbled, non-vacuum tumbled and vacuum tumbled samples when adding these three antioxidants.