Date of Award
5-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Food Science
First Advisor
Rosalee Hellberg
Second Advisor
Lilian Were
Third Advisor
Fred Caporaso
Abstract
Mislabeling of ground meat products is a form of food fraud that can lead to economic deception and interfere with dietary restrictions related to allergens or religious beliefs. In various parts of the world, including Ireland, Mexico and Turkey, high levels of meat mislabeling have been reported between 2000-2015. However, there is currently a lack of information regarding this practice in the United States. Therefore, the objective of this study was to test a variety of ground meat products sold on the U.S. commercial market for the presence of potential mislabeling. Forty-eight ground meat samples were purchased from online and local retail sources, including both supermarkets and specialty meat retailers. DNA was extracted from each sample in duplicate and tested using DNA barcoding of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. The resulting sequences were identified at the species level using the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD). Any samples that failed DNA barcoding went through repeat extraction and sequencing. Due to the possibility of a species mixture, these samples were also tested with real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting beef, chicken, lamb, turkey, pork and horse. Of the 48 products analyzed in this study, 10 were found to be mislabeled, with nine containing multiple meat species. Meat samples purchased from online specialty meat distributors had a higher rate of being mislabeled (35%) compared to samples purchased from a local butcher (18%) and samples purchased at local vii supermarkets (5.8%). Horsemeat, which is illegal to sell on the U.S. commercial market, was detected in two of the samples acquired from online specialty meat distributors. Overall, the mislabeling detected in this study appears to be due to reasons such as intentional mixing of lower-cost meat species into higher cost products or unintentional mixing of meat species due to cross-contamination during processing.
Recommended Citation
Kane, D. (2015). Identification of species in ground meat products sold on the U.S. commercial market using DNA-based methods. Master's thesis, Chapman University. https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000005
Included in
Food Processing Commons, Meat Science Commons, Other Food Science Commons, Poultry or Avian Science Commons
Comments
This document is a thesis completed by Dawn Kane in 2015. The article of the same title that she coauthored with Dr. Rosalee Hellberg is available here.