Abstract: Meat and meat products are subject to varying degrees of oxidative stress during processing and storage due to the specificity of muscle tissue. Protein is a major component of muscle tissue, and oxidative protein damage can lead to oxidative modification of amino acid side chain groups, cross-linking between peptide chains, peptide backbone cleavage and conformational changes, thus altering the functional properties of proteins and ultimately affecting the quality characteristics of the products. Previous studies are mostly focused on the negative effects of protein oxidation on the quality characteristics of meat products. However, recent studies have shown that protein oxidation plays a positive role in the quality characteristics of meat and meat products to a certain extent. Hence, this paper is devoted to review the state-of-the-art literature regarding the positive and negative effects of protein oxidation on meat and meat products as well as the underlying mechanisms.

Key words: meat and meat products; protein oxidation; quality characteristics; positive effects; negative effects