Author
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YOUNG, LOUIS |
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LYON, CLYDE |
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Submitted to: Poultry Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 6/9/1997 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Poultry meat which is removed from the bone shortly after slaughter tends to be tough, so food companies routinely allow intact carcasses to "rest" for a few hours between slaughter and manufacture of fillets, nuggets and similar products. This resting process is expensive so the food companies are interested in finding faster and less costly ways for producing tender chicken meat. In these experiments, slaughtered chickens were subjected to pulsed electric current during bleeding to hasten the rate of biochemical reactions partially responsible for tender breast meat. In addition to this physical treatment, the muscles were treated with a calcium solution to determine if the combined effects would optimize tenderness while reducing time and processing costs. It was found that shocking alone helped improve tenderness but combining the electrical treatment with calcium treatment offered no real advantage. Food companies can use these results to develop alterative ways for assuring poultry tenderness. Technical Abstract: The objective of this study was to assess the effects of a calcium treatment combined with electrical stimulation (ES) on textural and moisture binding of early-harvested chicken breast fillets. During exsanguination, half the birds were subjected to ES, and then all carcasses were aged for 30, 60, 90, or 120 min before excising both pectoralis major muscles. Half the muscles were chilled with a sodium chloride solution (controls) and half with a calcium chloride (treated) solution. Effects of ES and chill medium composition on meat pH, moisture absorption, cooking loss, and shear value of the fillets were assessed. The ES reduced meat pH for the controls, but had no effect on that of muscles treated with calcium chloride or on moisture absorbed during chilling. Cooking loss was greater for the calcium chloride-treated muscles than controls and for muscles from stimulated birds which were excised more than 30 min post-mortem. Shear values were unaffected by chilling medium composition. However, even though shear values for both ES and non-ES birds declined as ageing time increased, the rate of decline was greater, and ultimate shear value lower, for muscles from stimulated birds. Results indicate that, while ES might offer some advantage in improving the tenderness of early-harvested breast fillets, combining ES with calcium treatment offers no real advantage. Moreover, reductions in moisture binding properties by these technologies might limit applicability in some commercial environments. |
