Meat and meat products as a source of bioactive peptides

Meat is a high protein content food, with great nutritional and biological value. Meat protein hydrolysis begins with the muscle to meat conversion, during meat ageing. After slaughter, endogen enzymes are responsible of meat softening since myofibrillar anchorage proteins are degraded. Protein hydrolysis continues during food preparation. When meat reaches the stomach, pepsin is the first enzyme to interact. As the food travel trough out gastrointestinal tract, pancreatic enzymes degraded the remained protein and the peptidases made the final proteolysis process. The small proteins or peptides are the absorbed to the circulatory system and distributed to the rest of the body. Bioactive peptides activity of meat and meat products is anti-hypertensive mainly, where histidine, carnosine and anserine are the main peptides identified. Another peptide with anti-oxidant activity is glutathione. The content depends on animal species