Visual and chemical tissue markers for bovine carcass components

Area of Science:

• Food Science
• Analytical Chemistry
• Animal Science

Background:

• Accurate animal carcass tracing is crucial for food safety and traceability.
• Existing methods may lack non-invasiveness, quantifiability, or ease of use.
• A need exists for a robust, multi-component tracing system for postmortem meat tissues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a two-component, non-toxic tracing system for animal carcasses.
• To assess the efficacy of riboflavin and deuterium oxide (D2O) as postmortem tissue tracers.
• To determine the visibility and quantifiability of these markers over time and under different conditions.

Main Methods:

• Developed a system using riboflavin (UV-visible identifier) and deuterium oxide (D2O, infrared quantifiable tracer).
• Administered riboflavin and D2O to cull cows and heifers at various pre-slaughter intervals (1-144 h).
• Evaluated riboflavin fluorescence under UV and ambient light post-slaughter; quantified D2O in tissue water via infrared spectrophotometry.

Main Results:

• Riboflavin was identifiable under UV light on all carcasses up to 168 hours post-slaughter, but not under ambient light.
• All tissue water samples showed D2O concentrations at least 2.5 times higher than background levels.
• Deuterium oxide rapidly dispersed throughout tissues, with highly significant correlations (r=0.99) between blood and muscle D2O levels.

Conclusions:

• The developed two-component system (riboflavin and D2O) is effective for animal carcass tracing.
• Riboflavin serves as a reliable visual identifier under UV light, while D2O provides quantifiable, dispersed tissue tracking.
• This system offers a promising, non-toxic, and quantifiable method for postmortem meat traceability.