Volatile Production of Irradiated Normal, PSE, and DFD Pork

Summary and implications With both aerobic and vacuum packaging, irradiation increased the production of sulfur-containing volatiles in all three pork types (normal, PSE, DFD) at day 0, but did not increase hexanal- the major indicator volatile of lipid oxidation. PSE pork produced the lowest amount of total sulfur-containing volatiles in both aerobically and vacuum-packaged pork at day 0. Majority of sulfur-containing volatiles produced in meat by irradiation evaporated during the 10-day storage period under aerobic packaging conditions. With vacuum packaging, however, the all the volatiles produced by irradiation remained in the packaging bag during storage. Irradiation had no relationship with lipid oxidation-related volatiles (e.g., hexanal) in both aerobic and vacuum-packaged raw pork. DFD muscle was very stable and resistant to oxidative changes in both irradiated and nonirradiated pork during storage, suggesting that irradiation can significantly increase the use of raw DFD pork and greatly benefit pork industry.