457Chapter 26
Sensory Evaluation of Meat Products
Geoffrey R. Nute
Introduction
The defi nition of what constitutes a meat
product has been documented in different
government guidelines and statutes in various
countries around the world. In the United
Kingdom, defi nitions of meat products are
given in Statutory Instrument number 2075;
however, from a sensory point of view, a
more appropriate defi nition could be that
given in EC Council Directive 92/5/EEC
(1992) , which basically states that meat
products are derived from or contain pro-
cessed meats so that the characteristics of
fresh meat are no longer evident in the
product.
Meat products can be produced by many
processes, such as heating and cooking,
smoking, salting, brining, curing, drying, and
aging. A fuller description of food processing
technology is contained within a book by
Fellows (2000) , who gives an extensive
review of the many processes available to
food manufacturers.
The essential aim of producing meat
products is to increase or vary the many
aspects of texture, fl avor, and odor/aroma
available to consumers. As far as sensory
properties are concerned, the approaches
used are based on the quest for information
about some aspect of the products produced.
Sensory methodology and its applications
for meat are adequately described by Deliza
and Gloria (2009). Further approaches in
sensory analysis by way of typical sensory
descriptions used in meat studies and sensory
analysis of meat are given by Nute (2002,
2009).
The following sections give examples of
work that includes sensory methods as a
major part of each study across a wide range
of meat products.Cooked Ham
Ham usually refers to muscles removed from
the hind leg of pork that has undergone a
curing process, although in modern times,
ham is often used in a generic way to describe
a process rather than a specifi c part of a pig
(e.g., turkey ham, shoulder ham, etc.).
The American Meat Science Associa-
tion Committee produced “ Guidelines for
Sensory, Physical and Chemical Measur-
ements of Ham ” circa 1982. They listed the
important sensory descriptors covering fl avor
(6), aroma (5), appearance (9), and texture/
mouthfeel (7). They also recommended
using eight - point category scales for the
color of cured ham (pale to dark), cured
fl avor intensity, juiciness, cured pork aroma,
and fi rmness.
Rhodes and Nute (1980) used category
scales, a sensory panel, and a consumer panel
to investigate the acceptability of canned
ham differing in water content. Polyphosphate
concentration was varied from 0 to 0.80% on
a wet weight basis. The intent was to produce
hams without the foreign fl avors associated
with increasing polyphosphate levels while
water content was increased. There was no
signifi cant difference attributable to increas-