The effect of the technology of maral material preservation on its biochemical and biological properties

In Russia maral by-products (such as genitals, tails, tendons and embryos) get disposed of, although these materials have great biological indicators. This is due to the lack of an optimum technology that would allow for such products to be preserved and processed into multi-purpose bio-substances. At the moment, there are many research works describing the development of rational technologies of preservation of such materials, among which are technologies using infra-red energy, vacuum and freeze-drying. To find an optimum preservation technology biochemical composition and biological properties of maral materials preserved in a vacuum dryer in an infrared dryer and a freeze dryer were studied. For this study maral meat - the product with a high biological potentialwas taken; this property is actively made use of by a large number of dietary supplement manufacturers in Russia. The meat was fresh and taken at a maral slaughterhouse, after which the meat was minced, divided into 3 parts of equal size and cured in a vacuum dryer, an infrared dryer and a freeze dryer. According to the results of a series of the experiments, it was established that it took 8 hours to cure 1 kg of minced meat bio-substance to a moisture content of 10.0-12.0 % in an infrared dryer, 7.5 hours in a vacuum dryer, and 26 hours in a freeze dryer. The yield of finished materials did not significantly differ and amounted to 25.5-26.0 %. Biochemical composition of the meat, regardless of the preservation technology, had the protein amount 76.9-83.8 %, the fat - 5.12-5.43, amino acids - 33.87-36.98, fatty acids -72.9-74.6, and ash amounted to 4.5-4.8 %. As for adaptogenic and tonic effect, the preserved bio-substances again showed no significant differences, the figures were 267.6-279.7 and 216.6-225.9 minutes, respectively. The total biological value of the powder obtained from freeze-dried meat was 135.5 ± 3.5 %, for the powder obtained from the meat dried with vacuum and infrared energy, these values were 133.3 ± 4.2 and 134.5 ± 3.9 %, respectively.