Recent Advances in New Physical Field-Assisted Thawing Technologies to Applied Improve the Quality of Raw Meat

Freezing is a common method to preserve the quality of raw materials used for the industrial production of meat products. However, frozen meat needs to be thawed before production, and improper thawing can easily cause adverse effects on the protein structure, color, flavor and texture of meat. At present, the common industrial thawing methods include air thawing and water thawing. Although these traditional methods are easy to operate, they take a long time and cause rapid growth of microorganisms, which seriously damages the quality of raw meat. On this basis, new physical field-assisted thawing technologies have gradually emerged, which can control the time of protein oxidation in the presence of oxygen, reduce the microscopic damage of raw meat and the loss of juice, and restore the original quality of raw meat to the greatest extent, thereby meeting the needs of producers and consumers. This paper reviews the mechanism of action and application of new physical field-assisted thawing technologies in improving raw meat quality, as well as their combined application with traditional thawing technologies, in order to provide theoretical and technical guidance for the industrial application and development of new physical field-assisted thawing technologies.