Potential effect of Citrus aurantifolia, Citrus microcarpa and Citrus hystrix marinates on meat tenderizing / Ain Nur Najwa Samsudin

Meat production increased rapidly up to 20% in just 10 years and caused higher demands on meat quality. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze and to compare the potential of used Citrus aurantifolia (Limau Nipis), Citrus hystrix (Limau Purut) and Citrus microcarpa (Limau Kasturi) as a tenderizer for buffalo meat with the commercial bromelain as positive control based on the physiocochemical properties of the buffalo meat after the treatment. The buffalo meat chunks were marinated with 40% Citrus aurantifolia, 40% Citrus hystrix, 40% Citrus microcarpa, 40% commercial bromelain meat tenderizer (positive control) and distilled water (negative control) for 24 hours at 4°C. The treated samples were cooked at 100°C for 20 minutes. The cooked samples were subjected to physicochemical analyses. There are only two samples was significantly lower pH (p<0.05) for cooked meat chunks observed in all treated samples compared to control. Citrus hystrix and Citrus microcarpa showed lowest pH at 3.77±0.08 and 3.72±0.03, respectively, indicated that the meat chunks were well tenderized. Citrus hystrix treated sample recorded the highest (p<0.05) expressible water compared to others except for commercial bromelain. The moisture content of cooked sample did not had any significant (p<0.05) in all treated samples compared to control (distilled water). The hardness from TPA decreased significantly (p<0.05) for all treated samples compared to control (distilled water). On the other hand, proteolytic activities observed by measure the absorbance from UV-VIS spectrophotometer. The result showed that Citrus hystrix had highest proteolytic activity with 0.073±0.00 compared to other citrus group. It can be suggested that Citrus hystrix has the potential to be used as meat tenderizer with the ability to retain the moisture content as compared to other well-known and commercial meat tenderizers.