Lipids in muscles and adipose tissues, changes during processing and sensory properties of meat products

Dry-cured meat products represent a large part of the meat products on the European market. The technologies develop for these products lead to the production of a large scale of meat products with typical sensory traits. Numerous studies have been devoted to optimise the quality traits of these products which are considered as traditional products by the consumer and provide a high added value to the producer. Among the components of the raw material, lipids play a key role in the final quality of these products. Many sensory traits of dry-cured meat products depend on lipid traits of muscle and adipose tissues of fresh meat and on their degradation through a complex set of lipolytic and oxidative reactions during processing. Lipid traits of both muscle and adipose tissues of fresh meat are strongly related to pig rearing conditions, mainly genotype and feeding strategy. During processing, lipids undergo intense lipid hydrolysis controlled by both lipases and phospholipases, which remain active all along the process. Lipids are also subjected to oxidation, which generates numerous volatile compounds. These volatiles contribute to some typical aroma notes of dry-cured meat products such as rancid, aged ham and dry-cured odours. This paper reviews the recent knowledge on the influence of lipid traits of fresh meat, lipid hydrolysis and oxidation on the development of sensory traits of dry-cured meat products.