Biogenic amines: quality index of freshness in red and white meat

Biogenic amine (BA) content in meat can be considered as a freshness marker or as a bad conservation marker. In particular the study of BA quantities in meat as a function of conservation time, could be a useful tool to control meat spoilage. In fact, the formation of some amines and concentration increase of those already existing in meat, are due to degrading processes in food, which are promoted by enzymatic reactions caused by external microbial activity or by endogenous tissue activities. The amines considered are: tryptamine, putrescine, cadaverine, serotonin, tyramine, spermidine, spermine. Their quantitative determination was carried out by means of HPLC, with spectrophotometric-UV detection, on pre-treated meat samples, both “red” (adult bovine) and “white” (chicken). The amines were extracted in acid aqueous solution (HClO4) and then derivatised by dansylchloride. The trend of BA concentrations as a function of time was also investigated, in a period of 36 days, at the conservation temperature of 4±1 °C. The proposed method is linear in the range of concentrations between 0.01 and 5.0 μg/ml. For all the amines considered recoveries were ⩾93%. The CV values for all the measures ranged between 1.47% and 2.94%. The results show that in red meat the BA levels are still low until 9 days of storage (⩽30 mg/kg) and that over 36 days only cadaverine and tyramine concentrations become very high (⩾120 mg/kg). In white meat all the BA levels remain quite low (⩽40 mg/kg) all over the 36 days, instead of the cadaverine content which gains 50 mg/kg at the seventh day of storage