Comparison of Meat Quality of Portunus pelagicus and Portunus sanguinolentus

Abstract

The meat quality of live and dead crabs of Portunus pelagicus and Portunus sanguinolentus in raw and cooked condition was compared by microbiological, biochemical and organoleptic quality indices. Bacteriological quality assessment revealed that raw meat of dead P. sanguinolentus had higher loads of aerobic plate count, spore forming bacteria, staphylococci, presumptive vibrios, faecal streptococci, total coliforms and faecal coliforms, while raw and cooked meat of live P. sanguinolentus had higher counts of sulphite reducing clostridia. £. coli and human pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella sp.. Vibrio cholerae, V. parahaemolyticus and Listeria sp. were not detected in both the species. Qualitative analysis of bacterial flora revealed a general dominance of grampositive bacteria in all samples contributed mostly by Arthrobacter and Bacillus in raw and cooked meat respectively. Raw meat of dead P. sanguinolentus had high moisture and ash content with low protein and glycogen content than other samples. Water extractable nitrogen, alpha amino nitrogen, timethylamine and total volatile base nitrogen contents of P. sanguinolentus were found to be higher than those of P. pelagicus. Meat of dead P. pelagicus scored higher than the meat of live P. sanguniolentus in the organoleptic evaluation. The results revealed that meat quality of P.pelagicus was superior to that of P. Sanguinolentus