Insights into Digestibility and Peptide Profiling of Beef Muscle Proteins with Different Cooking Methods

This study aimed to investigate theeffects of sous vide (SV), boiling (BO), and roasting (RO) on beef protein digestibility and peptide profiling in simulated gastrointestinal digestion. The results indicated that beef samples treated with SV had higher (p < 0.05) gastrointestinal digestibility (34.97%) than those treated with BO (27.59%) and RO (24.36%). Furthermore, SV (2450) resulted in more types of peptides released during gastrointestinal digestion than BO (2077) and RO (1896) and a higher proportion of 400–1200 Da peptides. The significant increase of carbonyl content, the decrease of sulfhydryl content, and the formation of covalent bonds coupled with the transformation of protein secondary structure from α-helix to β-sheet suggested that excessive protein oxidation and aggregation occurred in BO and RO samples. These changes in BO and RO samples might explain the decreased protein digestibility and peptide release in gastrointestinal digestion. Thus, SV is a promising cooking method to improve beef protein digestibility.