Recent Advances in Effects of Slaughter Stress on the Quality of Meat and Meat Products

Dear Colleagues,

To increase our understanding of the determination of the quality of meat products, we need more awareness and knowledge of the effects of pre-slaughter stress on the mechanisms underlying meat quality. Animal stress has been studied extensively relative to animal welfare, that is, ethical questions. Apart from in extreme cases (e.g., PSE and DFD meats), the effects of pre-slaughter stress on animal food products have thus far received too little attention. Animals tend to perceive any change to their familiar living context, such as during the slaughter period, as a threat, resulting in stress. Stress reactions involve increased physical efforts and physiological, including metabolic, changes, allowing to deal with the threat (e.g., through fight and flight reactions). Behavioral and physiological stress reactions significantly affect, generally negatively, technological, sensory, and nutritional meat quality. Animals vary greatly in stress reactivity. Hence, even if slaughter conditions are standardized, animals’ reactions are not, inducing uncontrolled variation in meat quality traits if pre-slaughter stress levels have not been measured.

This Special Issue is dedicated to the causes of stress or of differences in stress reactivity between animals, relevant to the slaughter context, and to the consequences of stress in terms of behavior, metabolism, and physiology, of technological, sensory or nutritional meat quality, or of proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics of the muscle, organs or fluids relevant to meat quality.

Dr. Claudia Terlouw
Dr. Mohammed Gagaoua
Guest Editors

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