Beef samples treated with sous vide — a technique in which food is vacuum-sealed in a plastic pouch and then placed in a water bath or steam environment for longer than normal cooking times — have higher gastrointestinal digestibility than those treated with boiling or roasting, according to new research.
Yin et al. investigated the effects of sous vide, boiling, and roasting on beef protein digestibility and peptide profiling in simulated gastrointestinal digestion. Image credit: Anova Culinary / CC BY-SA 2.0.
Meat is an excellent source of high-quality protein because it contains balanced essential amino acids.
Before eating, raw meat is generally cooked to increase its palatability and safety for consumption.
Sous vide (French for ‘under vacuum’) is a popular method for meat cooking in restaurants and central kitchens, and sous vide under 55-60 degrees Celsius (131-140 degrees Fahrenheit) is often used for beef to obtain better tenderness and juiciness.
A research team led by Nanjing Agricultural University’s Dr. Wangang Zhang wondered if this culinary method could also increase beef protein digestibility compared with boiling or roasting.
The researchers investigated the effects of sous vide, boiling, and roasting on protein oxidation, structure, and digestibility.
They also mapped the peptide profile in gastrointestinal digestion of beef protein treated with sous vide, boiling, and roasting.
In cooked meat, they examined two markers of protein oxidation, finding that roasted meat was the most highly oxidized, followed by boiled meat and then the sous vide beef.
Sous vide also caused less protein aggregation and fewer changes in the proteins’ structures than the other cooking methods.
When the team placed the cooked beef in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids, the meat cooked by sous vide released a greater quantity and variety of peptides than meat cooked by the other methods, indicating increased digestibility.
“Sous vide was shown to be a desirable way to increase beef protein digestibility with protein unfolding,” the scientists said.
“The findings contribute to elucidating the relationship between the cooking method and meat nutritional quality.”
“Further studies are needed to assess the effects of peptides derived from meat cooked with different methods on the gut microenvironment and to evaluate their potential impacts on human health.”
The results were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
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Yantao Yin et al. 2020. Insights into Digestibility and Peptide Profiling of Beef Muscle Proteins with Different Cooking Methods. J. Agric. Food Chem 68 (48): 14243-14251; doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.0c04054
