Effects of two commercial meat tenderizers on different cuts of goat's meat in Namibia

Most meat consumed in Namibia is derived from poultry, cattle, sheep and pigs, despite the fact that majority of commercial and communal farmers in Namibia keep goats. Goat's meat is not available in the formal market or in the supermarkets in Namibia and is rarely used locally for domestic or commercial purposes due to ethical reasons, alleged poor taste, toughness and unpalatability. It is regarded by some to be for the poor sector of the community and for export only. Others consider goats as pets and a few consider goat's meat a delicacy for home use only. Research on meat tenderization has been carried out on beef, mutton and pork worldwide but very little has been done on goat meat. Meat tenderness has influence on softness, taste, palatability as well as preparation methods, carcass grade and meat price. Generally meat tenderness is indicated by age and species of the animal that indicate minimum cross linking of collagen and actomyosin effect in the muscles. In an attempt to increase goat's meat consumption in Namibia, two commercial meat tenderizers (acidic and enzymatic) were used and tested for their ability to tenderize different cuts of goat's meat. Three different cuts of the toughest parts of goat's meat, namely back, hind limbs and ribs were used for tenderization and to determine the effectiveness of the tenderizers. The first sample of three cuts was used for tenderizer one (acidic), the second for tenderizer two (enzymatic) and the third sample was un-tenderized and was used as a control. Trained panelists were asked to chew and evaluate tenderness of the coded braised goat meat samples on a hedonic scale and the mean results were subjected to statistical analysis. The results showed that the un-tenderized meat cuts (control) remained tough and hard compared to the tenderized ones, while there was no significant difference (p<0.05) between the two tenderized meat samples and the effectiveness of tenderizers to tenderize the three different cuts of goat meat. Panelists also evaluated the meat cuts equally. The cuts were tenderized equally and were regarded as soft.