Nutrition & Food Science

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to prepare tsire suya from three different muscle types (beef) with a view to assessing their suitability for suya production as regard the product yield and their eating/organoleptic characteristics. High cost of choice meat used in suya production makes the product an exclusive meat for the rich. In order to make suya (an intermediate moisture meat (IMM)) available and affordable to the common man thereby increasing their animal protein intake, this experiment therefore becomes imperative.

Design/methodology/approach – Meat from the semimembranosus (SM), biceps femoris (BF) and psoas major (PM) muscles were used for the study. The muscles were carefully excised and trimmed of all visible connective tissue. The meat was sliced into thin sheet of 0.15-0.30?cm thick and between 5 and 9?cm long. The experiment comprised three treatments in a completely randomized design. A total of 30 sticks of suya were prepared from each muscle-type.

Findings – The percent cooking loss was highest (p?<?0.05) in the PM (23.91?±?0.38) as against the values of 20.70?±?0.36 and 18.52?±?0.38 obtained for SM and BF, respectively. The water holding capacity (WHC) was highest in the SM followed by BF and PM with values of 79.99?±?2.05, 71.11?±?8.30 and 68.17?±?1.72 per cent, respectively. BF gave the highest (p?<?0.05) product yield (87.72?±?2.51) while SM and PM gave values that were statistically similar (p?>?0.05). SM gave the highest (p?<?0.05) values for tenderness, juiciness and overall acceptability.

Practical implications – Suya can be produced from other muscles than the traditional SM muscle.

Originality/value – The result showed that the cost of suya production can be reduced without compromising quality with the use of BF muscle.