Chemical, Microbiological, and Sensory Analysis Benefits Leading to Shelf-Life Extension of Minced Beef Meat Using Essential Oil of Oregano Contained in Xanthan Gum and Guar Gum Edible Coating
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors:
Abstract:
Line 15: 0% of oregano essential oil – there is no such level in the entire manuscript.
Materials and Methods:
2.1. Samples and preparation of coating solution, treatment and storage of samples – in my opinion treatment plan is a bit vaguely explained.
2.2.2. Sensory evaluation of minced beef – in my opinion this section is very poor detailed. . The state of sensory analysis is missing (light: lamp, sun; ambient and meat temperature, sample description - weight, shape, etc.). What about the panelists? Have you used ISO 8586: 2012?
2.3. Microbiological analysis of minced beef – have you not used any ISO standards for microbiological analysis?
Have you done any statistical analysis??
Results and Discussion:
I don’t see any discussion of pH or sensory analysis. Please discuss pH and sensory analysis.
The whole section needs to be improved. Not enough references were used.
Line 122, 127, 129 – on which bases you claim about “A significant decrease”, “increased significantly” or “was significantly redder”? There wasn’t any statistical analysis mentioned in method section!
Table 1 – please always use two decimal places.
Line 166, “E. coli” should be italicized.
Line 173: Many studies mean only: Pateiro, M.; Munekata, P.E.S.; Sant'Ana, A.S.; Domínguez, R.; Rodríguez-Lázaro, D.; Lorenzo, J.M. Application of essential oils as antimicrobial agents against spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms in meat products? Please add more references.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We thank you for your valuable comments; authors agree with all of them and a step-by-step answer to them follows:
Line 15: 0% of oregano essential oil – there is no such level in the entire manuscript.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, it has been deleted.
Materials and Methods:
2.1. Samples and preparation of coating solution, treatment and storage of samples – in my opinion treatment plan is a bit vaguely explained.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the section includes now more details, in order to efficiently describe the coating procedure.
2.2.2. Sensory evaluation of minced beef – in my opinion this section is very poor detailed. . The state of sensory analysis is missing (light: lamp, sun; ambient and meat temperature, sample description - weight, shape, etc.). What about the panelists? Have you used ISO 8586: 2012?
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the section now includes the information requested in order to describe more accurately the sensory evaluation procedure.
2.3. Microbiological analysis of minced beef – have you not used any ISO standards for microbiological analysis?
Answer: We agree with the reviewer and should refer the ISO standards used in our microbiological analysis. The ISO standards are now referred.
Have you done any statistical analysis??
Answer: One way ANOVA analysis was performed to compare the mean values in differente days of storage. A statistical analysis section is now included in the materials and methods section.
Results and Discussion:
I don’t see any discussion of pH or sensory analysis. Please discuss pH and sensory analysis.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the pH and sensory analysis is now discussed presenting some extra references as well.
The whole section needs to be improved. Not enough references were used.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer,the discussion is improved by adding further references and reaching from a total of 11 to a total of 39 references.
Line 122, 127, 129 – on which bases you claim about “A significant decrease”, “increased significantly” or “was significantly redder”? There wasn’t any statistical analysis mentioned in method section!
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the statistical analysis section is now included in the materials and methods section, mentioning significance difference at p-value<0.05
Table 1 – please always use two decimal places.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, decimal places are now used in the entire table.
Line 166, “E. coli” should be italicized.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, E. coli is now italicized throughout the text
Line 173: Many studies mean only: Pateiro, M.; Munekata, P.E.S.; Sant'Ana, A.S.; Domínguez, R.; Rodríguez-Lázaro, D.; Lorenzo, J.M. Application of essential oils as antimicrobial agents against spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms in meat products? Please add more references.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, rhere are several references now included in the discussion section in order to critically discuss our results.. Indicatively:
Rakshit, M.; Ramalingam, C. Gum acacia coating with garlic and cinnamon as an alternate, natural preservative for meat and fish.Afr. J. Biotechnol.2013,12, 406–413
Vital, A.C.; Guerrero, A.; Monteschio, J.; Valero, M.V.; Carvalho, C.B.; Filho, B.A.A.; Madrona, G.S.; Prado, I.N.D. Effect of Edibleand Active Coating (with Rosemary and Oregano Essential Oils) on Beef Characteristics and Consumer Acceptability.PLoS ONE2016,11, e0160535
Hamann, D.; Puton, B.M.S.; Colet, R.; Steffens, J.; Ceni, G.C.; Cansian, R.L.; Backes, G.T. Active edible films for application inmeat products.Res. Soc. Dev.2021,10, e13610716379
Reviewer 2 Report
Chemical, microbiological, and sensory analysis benefits leading to shelf-life extension of minced beef meat using essential oil of oregano contained in xanthan gum and guar gum edible coating.
The paper has some interesting results about the use of edible antimicrobial coating based on guar gum and xanthan gum with oregano essential oil as an alternative to extending the shelf-life minced beef meat.
In general, the paper is well written and has some interesting results, but there is a lack of analysis and discussion of the results.
Introduction,
It would be important to expand the introduction, referring to other published papers about the extension of the shelf life of meat and using coatings
It is also important to talk more about the use of edible coatings with essential oils; in which products they have been reported, and if there are already some commercially used on the market.
Materials and methods
It is necessary to include a section on statistical analysis.
Results and Discussion.
Figure 1 the control is uncoated meat?
The treatment 0% essential oil (OEO) is missing. This treatment is mandatory to know if the presence of the OEO has an effect.
There is also a lack of treatment where they put the meat in contact with oil without the coating.
It is necessary to do a better discussion of the results, for example, was there a significant difference between the treatments for the pH parameter?
Why the pH increased over time? What happened in the 3% Oil treatment?
Line 124, …because of the oxidation of oxymyoglobin to metmyoglobin.. Add a reference.
Line 133, … of minced beef meat.. (Add a reference)
In Table 1 are the same results of figure 1? Choose only one, may be the figure is more clear.
The same for figure 2 and table 2.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We thank you for your valuable comments; authors agree with all of them and a step-by-step answer to them follows:
Introduction,
It would be important to expand the introduction, referring to other published papers about the extension of the shelf life of meat and using coatings
It is also important to talk more about the use of edible coatings with essential oils; in which products they have been reported, and if there are already some commercially used on the market.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the introduction has been expanded according to the reviewers’ suggestions.
Materials and methods
It is necessary to include a section on statistical analysis.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the statistical analysis section is now included.
Results and Discussion.
Figure 1 the control is uncoated meat?
The treatment 0% essential oil (OEO) is missing. This treatment is mandatory to know if the presence of the OEO has an effect.
There is also a lack of treatment where they put the meat in contact with oil without the coating.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the experimental procedure followed refers to control sample (only minced meat) and coated samples with OEO in various concentrations (1, 2 and 3%). These are now clearly described in the text, in order to avoid any misunderstanding.
It is necessary to do a better discussion of the results, for example, was there a significant difference between the treatments for the pH parameter? Why the pH increased over time? What happened in the 3% Oil treatment?
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, he pH differences are now discussed further, supported by the relevant references.
Line 124, …because of the oxidation of oxymyoglobin to metmyoglobin.. Add a reference.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the relevant reference is now included
Line 133, … of minced beef meat.. (Add a reference)
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, the relevant reference is now included
In Table 1 are the same results of figure 1? Choose only one, may be the figure is more clear.
The same for figure 2 and table 2.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, table 1 has been reformed in order to include only the instrumental sensory analysis data. Table 2 has been removed.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have put a lot of effort in addressing the issues pointed out by the reviewer. As far as I can see, the manuscript looks ready for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have improved the manuscript and have attend some suggestions.
The authors have addressed some suggestions, however there are important aspects that must be addressed.
Results and Discussion
The treatment 0% essential oil (OEO) is missing. This treatment is mandatory to know if the presence of the OEO has an effect.
The authors must do the treatment 0% essential oil and a treatment where they put the meat in contact with oil without the coating to know the effect of the oil.
It is necessary to do a better analysis of results and discussion. They must write about the significant differences on the treatments for all the response variables. For example, was there a significant difference between the treatments for the pH parameter?
Figure 2. The authors must show error bars on the graph.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer once more for his valuable comments, that have allowed us to significantly improve our manuscript.
The point by point answers to the reviewer’s comments follow:
Reviewer 2
Results and Discussion
The treatment 0% essential oil (OEO) is missing. This treatment is mandatory to know if the presence of the OEO has an effect.
The authors must do the treatment 0% essential oil and a treatment where they put the meat in contact with oil without the coating to know the effect of the oil.
Answer: As the experiment was designed and performed at a specific time with a specific batch of minced meat and this combination of coating and essential oil, it is not possible to include it a second stage as our results will not be comparable. What we suggest is to address this a possible limitation to our results. However, the aim of this study was not to assess the effect of coating or the essential oil separately; various studies have been performed on these. Our aim is to assess the effect of the combination of these, testing different concentration of OEO in this combination. In results and discussion, relevant text has been added.
It is necessary to do a better analysis of results and discussion. They must write about the significant differences on the treatments for all the response variables. For example, was there a significant difference between the treatments for the pH parameter?
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, where p values were statistically significant (p<0.05) it was added in the text. We also extended the discussion section.
Figure 2. The authors must show error bars on the graph.
Answer: We agree with the reviewer, error bars have been added on the graph (because of the log scale and the range of values at TVC and Enterobacteriaceae count, they are not so obvious on the relevant charts).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have improved the manuscript and have attend some suggestions.
