Tuna is popularly eaten raw as sashimi. An important eating quality, freshness of the tuna, is indicated by the bright red colour of the raw meat. The desirable bright red colour is due to oxygenated muscle pigments.
Carbon Monoxide Treatment Recently, carbon monoxide (CO) gas has been used to treat tuna meat in order to retain its ‘fresh’ red colour for a longer period of time or to convert the brown colour to the desirable red colour. The carbon monoxide reacts with the muscle pigments to form a very stable complex, carboxymyoglobin. Fresh, chilled or thawed out frozen tuna cuts can be treated with CO to obtain the desired colour effect on appearance.
Health Implications
There are no direct health implications from eating CO-treated tuna. Read more on CO-treated food products to improve your understanding of the process and why this innovation has been considered safe by many food safety relagulators world-wide. Click here for more info on CO-treated products.
Carbon monoxide (CO) gas has been used to treat tuna meat in order to retain its ‘fresh’ red colour for a longer period of time
