Modern methods for determining meat freshness: mini-review

Assessment of the freshness of perishable foodstuffs and food raw materials, in particular meat and meat products, is an important area of research in the field of food systems. The main generally accepted methods for determining freshness of meat include organoleptic, microbiological and physico-chemical parameters. One of the most accurate methods for assessing meat freshness is the analysis of changes caused by the cleavage of adenosine triphosphate. To quantify purine derivatives in food products, as one of the indicators of freshness, high-precision methods are used, including high-performance liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, extremely effective liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry, gas chromatography with mass spectrometry. All abovementioned methods are time-consuming, economically impractical and require expensive equipment. A new direction in assessing the freshness of meat is the use of practical biosensors that make it possible to inexpensively and quickly detect low concentrations of analyzed substances - indicators of product freshness. The key requirement is considered to be the development of an optimal sensitive surface that can stabilize biological recognition molecules and must be coupled with physical transducers that translate the obtained biological recognition data into a quantitative signal.