Meat colour stabilisation needs to be understood as myoglobin chemistry

A new laboratory study on beef colour puts caffeic acid at the centre of a practical question: how can browning be delayed without treating colour as an isolated attribute? The authors combined meat and model-system trials with physicochemical analyses, spectroscopy, atomic-force microscopy, molecular docking and molecular-dynamics simulations. Their aim was to describe the interaction between caffeic acid and myoglobin, the pigment that largely determines the perception of red meat colour.