Physicochemical characteristics and microbial safety of defatted bovine heart and its lipid extracted with supercritical-CO₂ and solvent extraction

The demand for healthier meat and meat products with low fat is increasing rapidly to reduce cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. Bovine heart was defatted using supercritical-CO₂ (SC-CO₂) at a constant temperature (40 °C) with three different pressures (20, 30, and 40 MPa) and using solvent extraction. The objective of this study was to produce a low-fat meat ingredient such as defatted bovine heart (DBH), and investigate its physicochemical characteristics and microbial safety, including the extraction yield and fatty acid composition of bovine heart lipid. SC-CO₂ treatment at high pressure results in higher removal of fat i.e. a higher extraction yield (93.60%). The DBH prepared using SC-CO₂ at 30 and 40 MPa had significantly higher proteins (82.07 and 82.67 g/100 g DBH, respectively), amino acids (80.39 and 79.05 g/100 g DBH, respectively), and minerals (2910 and 2901 mg/100 g DBH, respectively) and with lower microbial contents compared to those of the control and other DBHs. SC-CO₂-extracted lipid had significantly higher unsaturated fatty acids (53.09 g/100 g fatty acids) than the control (45.62) and hexane-extracted lipid (44.65). SC-CO₂-treatment leads to higher fat removal without deterioration of nutritional quality and significantly reduces the microbial content in defatted meals.