In recent years, with the improvement of people’s living standards and the adjustment of dietary structure, people’s demand for meat has gradually increased, and the livestock breeding industry has developed rapidly. In order to improve the meat production performance and meat quality of livestock, new crossbreeds with excellent meat production performance meat quality have been developed between indigenous breeds and imported excellent breeds. However, at present, a comparative analysis between purebred and crossbred offspring is still lacking. This paper reviews and analyzes recent achievements in understanding the differences in meat production performance meat quality between purebred and crossbred livestock, and pinpoints the advantages of pure breeds and crosses. It is anticipated that this review will provide a reference for further promoting the formation of livestock improvement system.

With the increasing consumption of mutton and the frequent occurrence of related food safety problems, the demand for mutton traceability and authentication technologies has become a hot spot in the current society. At present, there have been reports on on the traceability and identification of mutton. Stable isotope technology, mineral element fingerprinting, near-infrared spectroscopy, DNA molecular marker-based traceability technology, fatty acid-based traceability and identification technology, and flavor compound-based traceability and identification technology have been widely used in traceability and identification research. However, with the continuous development of these technologies, some urgent problems have been exposed. Based on the current research data and literature, this paper summarizes and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of mutton traceability and identification technologies, analyzes the problems existing in the current technical research, and puts forward suggestions and solutions, in order to provide theoretical support for further research.

For geographical traceability and breed discrimination of lamb meat in Southern Xinjiang, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry was used to analyze the differences in the contents of 25 mineral elements in lamb meat from four local breeds in this region. Characteristic elements were determined by analysis of variance, orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA), hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The results showed that there were significant differences in the contents of 16 mineral elements including Na, Mg, K, Ca, P, Fe, Zn, Rb, V, Cu, Cr, Se, Sr, Cd, Ag, Cs among lamb meat from different breeds. Furthermore, Se, Mg, P, Sr, and Ag were selected as the characteristic mineral elements for traceability and discrimination. Se, Mg, Sr, and Ag were determined as the characteristic mineral elements in Hetian lamb, P in Celle black lamb, Mg and Sr in Duolang lamb, and Sr in Hetian white lamb. Based on these characteristic elements, a discriminant model was established, and the overall accuracy rate was 100% in both cross-validation and back-validation tests, demonstrating that the five selected mineral elements are effective for distinguishing the lamb meat from four local breeds in Southern Xinjiang, confirming the validity of this model. Therefore, the analytical method based on mineral element differences allows traceability and identification of lamb meat from four local breeds in Southern Xinjiang, which is of great significance for the protection of local specialty sheep breeds in Xinjiang.

Venison has a long history of consumption in China, being rich in protein and low in both fat and cholesterol. This aligns with the current consumer demand for a healthy diet. Furthermore, it is in short supply on the international market, which is highly popular among consumers both at home and abroad. The red deer is one of the most economically important animals for both meat production and medicinal purposes in China. Its meat productivity is significantly higher than that of other deer species. Xinjiang is a very important distribution area of red deer resources in China. This paper conducts a systematic review of the literature concerning the factors influencing the meat of red deer including both internal (age in months, sex, muscle parts, and breed) and external (growing season, feeding mode, postmortem aging time, and storage mode) ones as well as red deer meat products. It presents a comprehensive understanding of the unique quality attributes of red deer meat. This review hopes to provide theoretical support for constructing a suitable production and processing system of red deer meat and promoting the rapid development of Xinjiang’s red deer industry.

In order to clarify the relationships between the antioxidant activity in vitro of different antioxidants permitted to be added in heat-processed meat products according to the national standard of China GB 2760-2014 and their inhibitory effect on protein and fat oxidation, the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging capacity and reducing power of eight selected antioxidants were determined, and the effect of separately adding the antioxidants to heat-processed meat products was investigated on protein and lipid oxidation as reflected by thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) value as well as the contents of carbonyl and sulfhydryl groups. The results showed that the total polyphenol content, DPPH radical scavenging capacity and reducing power of rosmarinci acid (RA), tea polyphenol (TP), theaflavins (TF) and carnosicacid (CA) were all significantly higher than those of glycyrrhiza extract (GE), extract of bamboo leaves (BL), sodium phytate (SP) and potassium sorbate (PS). For roasted and fried meat patties, there were large differences in the inhibitory effect of different antioxidants against protein and fat oxidation. BL was the most effective antioxidant suitable for all six processed meat products, TF was more suitable for roasted chicken patties and beef patties, TP was more suitable for roasted beef patties and pork patties, SP was more suitable for fried chicken patties and beef patties, and CA was more suitable for fried beef patties and pork patties. Overall, the antioxidants with strong antioxidant activity in vitro (RA, TP, TF, and CA) may not necessarily strongly inhibit protein and fat oxidation in heat-processed meat products, while the antioxidants with weak antioxidant activity in vitro can have strong inhibitory activity (BL and SP). This implies that there may not be a significant correlation between the antioxidant activity in vitro of different antioxidants and their ability to improve the oxidative stability of heat-processed meat products.

Heterocyclic amines (HAs) are a class of toxic compounds with strong teratogenic and carcinogenic activities which are produced during thermal processing of meat products. Three types of HAs, including 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]-quinoline (IQ) and 2-amino-3,4-dimethyl-imidazo[4,5-f]-quinoline (MeIQ), 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]-pyridine (PhIP), and 1-methyl-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole (Harmane) and 9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole (Norharman), are common and widely distributed in heat-processed meat products. This article briefly analyzes the formation pathways and mechanisms of these HAs, elucidates the inhibitory mechanism of exogenous plant polyphenols on their formation, and clarifies the structure-activity relationship of polyphenol compounds for the inhibition of their formation. This review will provide theoretical guidance for the effective application of plant polyphenols to control the formation of HAs in heat-processed meat products.