Abstract: To investigate the effect of supercritical carbon dioxide( SC- CO_2) treatment on sterilization and the edible quality of meat.The sterilization effects of pressure,temperature and time was examined,based on which sterilization condition was optimized by orthogonal method,meanwhile the edible quality indicators was compared before and after the sterilization treatment of fresh beef. The experimental results showed that sterilization temperature 50 ℃,sterilized pressure 14 MPa,sterilization time 10 min respectively was the optimal condition for fresh- beef sterilization effect based on which the sterilization rate was 99%.Under the best sterilization conditions,the p H and myofibrillar protein content of fresh beef were observed a decrease with no significance.Whlie sarcoplasmic protein content were reduced significantly( p < 0.05). The fresh beef showed significantly increasing trends in b*value and L*value,while significantly decreasing trends were observed in a*value,cooking loss and shear force( p < 0.05). In conclusion,the sterilization effect of supercritical CO2 treatment on fresh beef is significant,which is conducive to improving the edible quality of fresh beef.