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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Meat Safety and Quality » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #380137
Research Project: Strategies to Optimize Meat Quality and Composition of Red Meat Animals

Location: Meat Safety and Quality

Title: Meat tenderness: Underlying mechanisms, instrumental measurement, and sensory assessment

Author
item WARNER, ROBYN - Melbourne University
item MILLER, RHONDA - Texas A&M University
item HA, MINH - Melbourne University
item Wheeler, Tommy
item DUNSHEA, FRANK - Melbourne University
item LI, XIN - Chinese Academy Of Agricultural Sciences
item VASKOSKA, ROZITA - Melbourne University
item PURSLOW, PETER - National University Of Central Buenos Aires Province

Submitted to: Meat and Muscle Biology
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/20/2020
Publication Date: 4/1/2021
Citation: Warner, R., Miller, R., Ha, M., Wheeler, T.L., Dunshea, F., Li, X., Vaskoska, R., Purslow, P. 2021. Meat tenderness: Underlying mechanisms, instrumental measurement, and sensory assessment. In: Proceedings of 2020 International Congress of Meat Science and Technology and the AMSA Reciprocal Meat Conference, August 2-7, 2020, virtual. Meat and Muscle Biology. 4(2):17, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.22175/mmb.10489.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22175/mmb.10489

Interpretive Summary: Meat tenderness is a quality trait critical to consumer acceptance and determines satisfaction, repeat purchase, and willingness-to-pay premium prices. The aim of this review was to explore instrumental and sensory methods for assessing meat tenderness in relation to underlying mechanisms, and to identify limitations of existing methods, as well as opportunities for global standardization. To achieve this, tenderness is defined, and the main instrumental methods for tenderness are presented, including their historical development and standardization efforts. The significant determinants of meat tenderness are presented as well as the development of sensory methods for assessing meat, the link between objective measures of texture and consumer tenderness scores and considerations for future research.

Technical Abstract: Meat tenderness is a quality trait critical to consumer acceptance and determines satisfaction, repeat purchase, and willingness-to-pay premium prices. The aim of this review was to explore instrumental and sensory methods for assessing meat tenderness in relation to underlying mechanisms, and to identify limitations of existing methods, as well as opportunities for global standardization. To achieve this, tenderness is defined, and the main instrumental methods for tenderness are presented, including their historical development and standardization. The significant determinants of meat tenderness are presented encompassing connective tissue and cross-links, myofibrillar integrity, sarcomere length, intramuscular fat, and protein denaturation during cooking. The development of sensory methods for assessing meat is presented and the link between objective measures of texture and consumer tenderness scores. Recent advances in statistical methods for sensory data are discussed, and considerations for future research are outlined.