Author
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Senter, Samuel - Sam |
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Young, Louis |
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Searcy, Gayle |
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Submitted to: Poultry Science
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 1/22/1996 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: There have been incidents of rejection of commercially prepared chicken products formulated with thigh meat because of apparent undercooking. Although measured internal temperatures at the processing plant were in excess of recommended end-point temperature (EPT) of 71.1 C, these products were deemed undercooked by the recipient because of juice color and appearance of some of the meat. Samples of dark and light meat from chicken thighs (primarily adductor tissue and the semitendosus and sartorius tissue, respectively) were cooked to internal temperatures of 70, 72 and 75 C in a laboratory heating system, expressed juices were compared at each temperature for red color, and EPTs of the samples were estimated by measuring residual glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) activities by procedures developed in our laboratory. Juices expressed from the darker colored meat had much more red color than juices from the lighter colored meats at all temperatures evaluated, however, GOT activities did not differ significantly at the 5% probability level within treatments. Results indicate that judgmental errors can be made in subjectively estimating EPTs of these products, and that measurement of residual GOT activity is a useful means to determine EPTs in this range of processing temperatures. KEY WORDS: color, light and dark meat, undercooked |
