Determining the longissimus lumborum and psoas major beef steak color life threshold and effect of post-mortem aging time using meta-analysis

longissimuslumborum (LL) and psoas major (PM) steaks duringretail display and the effect of postmortem aging time (PMT) on the displaycolor life of LL and PM steaks using meta-analysis was determined. In phaseone, data were retrieved from 13 and 3 referred journal articles, for LL andPM, respectively, that included a* and subjective visual scores. The total display dayobservations for LL and PM were 148 and 27, respectively. Lower bound estimatesusing a 95% confidence interval for a* as a borderline for the display colorlife of LL and PM steaks were 20.24 and 20.99, respectively. For phase two, datawere retrieved from 26 and 10 referred journal articles, for LL and PM,respectively, that included a* and PMT. The total display dayobservations for LL and PM in phase two were 255 and 71, respectively. For LLsteaks, the actual PMT was grouped into five categories: 0-7 d; 8-14 d; 15-21d; 22-28 d; and 29-65 d. Additionally, the PMT of PM steaks was grouped intotwo categories: 0-7 d and 8-21 d. The first 21 d PMT for LL steaks had thelongest color life with 7 d of color life. Additionally, 22-28 and 29-65 d ofPMT had 5 and 4 d, respectively, of color life for LL steaks. The borderlineacceptability estimated for PM steaks with 0-7 d and 8-21 of PMT was 3 and 2 dof color life, respectively. Estimations from this meta-analysis demonstrate that usingLL and PM subprimals having a PMT of 21 d or less and 7 d or less, respectively,would optimize retail display color life of aerobically packaged steaks.