Relationships between texture and water property measurements in raw intact broiler breast fillets with the wooden breast condition

Authors: Zhuang, Hong; PANG, BIN - Qingdao Agricultural University; ZHANG, JIAN - Beijing Academy Of Agricultural Sciences; Bowker, Brian

Submitted to: International Congress of Meat Science and Technology Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/1/2024
Publication Date: 8/18/2024
Citation: Zhuang, H., Pang, B., Zhang, J., Bowker, B.C. 2024. Relationships between texture and water property measurements in raw intact broiler breast fillets with the wooden breast condition. International Congress of Meat Science and Technology Proceedings. No. 64: 177-178.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Relationships between texture measurements and meat water properties were investigated in raw intact broiler breast fillets with the wooden breast (WB) condition. Boneless skinless fillets were collected from a commercial processing plant. Fillets (a total of 72 fillets, 24 for each group) were grouped using a 3-point scale for normal, moderate WB, and severe WB based on palpable hardness and rigidity. Fillet texture was also measured with the Blunt Meullenet-Owens Razor Shear (BMORS) using a Texture Analyzer. Transverse relaxation (T2) of fillets was measured using a 1H-NMR analyzer. The decay curves were processed with the CONTIN regularization algorithm, resulting in the corresponding water properties, time constants (T), proportion (P), and normalized areas (A) for water populations 2b (fast time constant), 21 (medium time constant), and 22 (slow time constant). Spearman correlation coefficients were analyzed for relationships between WB scores and water property parameters (T2b, T21, T22, A2b, A21, A22, P2b, P21, and P22) and Pearson correlation coefficients for relationships between BMORS force and water properties with SPSS software. In the fresh meat samples, there were three water populations observed with time constants of 0.34-0.46, 44.2-67.2, and 156.2-301.9 ms, normalized abundances of 1.3-5.2, 225.9-519.1, and 46.3-510.1 (area/100 g fresh meat weight), and relative proportions of 0.20-1.43, 45.3-86.9, and 12.1-54.5%. There were significant Spearman (|r| = 0.46-0.78, P < 0.001) and Pearson (|r| = 0.45-0.72, P < 0.001) correlations except for A21. Strong and significant Spearman correlations (|r| > 0.60, P < 0.001) were found for T21, A22, P21 and P22 with P21 negatively (r = -0.78) and P22 positively (r = 0.77) associated with WB scores. However, a strong and significant Pearson correlation was noted only between BMORS force and T21 (r = 0.72, P < 0.001). The Pearson r values for T2 parameters T2b, T21, T22, A2b, A21, and P2b were similar to the Spearman r values (the differences were < 0.11); however, for T2 parameters A22, P22, and P21, the r values with BMORS were much smaller than those with WB scores (the differences were > |0.25|). A22, P22, and P21 were moderately (|r| = 0.49-0.50) correlated with BMORS peak force; however, they were strongly correlated with the WB scores (|r| = 0.74-0.78). These results indicate that changes in the abundance of free water and in the mobility and proportion of immobilized water are strongly associated with palpable hardness and rigidity of raw broiler fillets. However, only the change in mobility of immobilized water is strongly and positively associated with texture characteristics shear and hardness measured with the BMORS method. These results also suggest that mobility of immobilized water (T21) may affect texture hardness, but abundance of free water (A22) may affect the rigidity texture attribute of raw WB meat.