A sensory perspective of effect of feeds on flavor in meats: poultry meats.

Reduction of feed costs is a major concern of poultry producers. However, replacement of components of a corn-soybean diet with a lower-cost alternative requires the assessment not only of poultry performance and carcass characteristics but also of resulting meat quality. A brief overview of research studies, conducted over the past 10 yr, investigating the effects of alternative poultry feedstuffs on poultry meat flavor is presented. The primary focus is on the sensory analysis technique employed in these studies to evaluate flavor. The studies discussed include examinations of poultry diets that contain various levels of rapeseed meal, fishmeal and other feed additives. Diversity of the sensory techniques used illustrates the difficulty of comparing sensory results among studies. This difficulty is emphasized further with an example of how two different sensory sample preparation techniques affected the conclusion drawn from replicate studies of poultry diets supplemented with fishmeal (0, 4, 8 and 12%). One of the replicates was cooked and sampled for sensory analysis; the other was placed in 4 degrees C storage overnight. For the samples tested immediately following cooking, no difference between the treatments was detected. However, when the samples were tested following overnight storage (4 degrees C), chicken flavor decreased (P less than .001) and fish-off flavor increased (P less than .001) as percentage of fish meal in the diet increased.