Meat samples collected at 0 day and 4 days retail display time (i.e., 1
and 5 dayspost-slaughter), from all lambs were analysed for the level of
malondialdehyde (MDA) using the 2-thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) procedure (Witte, Krause, & Bailey, 1970), as an indicative assessment of the formation of lipid oxidative substances during
retail display of meat. In brief, 20 g of diced meat sample was
homogenised with 50 mL of iced trichloroacetic acid (TCA) solution
for 60 s. Another 50 mL of distilled water was added to the content,
homogenised for further 15 s and the content was filtered using
Whatman # 1 filter paper. The filtrate (4 mL) was pipetted with 4 mL
of 5 mM thiobarbituric acid (TBA) and incubated in dark for 15 h to
form TBARS from the reaction of MDA with TBA. The absorbance of
the coloured complex was measured spectrophotometrically at
538 nm. TBARS was calculated using standard and sample readings
and expressed in mg MDA/kg of meat.