Fatty acids, antioxidants and oxidation stability of processed reindeer meat

The effect of hot smoking and drying on reindeer meat (M. semimembranosus) was investigated with regard to vitamin content, fatty acids (FA), lipid oxidation and lipolysis. In smoked and dried meat, free fatty acids were found to increase (P<0.001), whereas polar lipids, cholesterol and triacylglycerols decreased. Only slight changes in FA composition of the smoked meat were found but the composition of the dried meat differed significantly from both smoked and fresh meat. Fresh and smoked meat were found to have low values (0.11 μg/g dry matter (DM); 0.21 μg/g DM) of thiobarbituric acid reacting substances but dried meat had high values (8.33 μg/g DM; P<0.001). Retinol was found only in the fresh meat and the tocopherol content decreased significantly (P<0.001) as a result of the processing. We conclude that the smoking process slightly changed FA composition, lipid class composition and vitamin content, whereas drying resulted in major changes in all the analysed parameters.