INTRODUCTION Tenderness is an important attribute of meat which has a significant impact on consumer acceptability of the product. Considerable variation in meat tenderness exists even under modem production and handling systems (Morgan et al., 1991). Final tenderness of meat is determined by the rate and extent ofpost mortem proteolysis of key myofibrillar proteins. Also results of a number of...

Consumers consider tenderness to be the single most important component of meat quality. Recently, it has finally become clear that a lack of consistency in meat tenderness is one of the main problems facing the meat industry (Morgan et al., 1991b; Smith, 1992). A West coast supermarket chain (annual beef sales of $130 million) requests that its customers return any meat purchased, if they are ...

Meat quality is a term used to describe a range of attributes of meat. Consumer research suggests that tenderness is a very important element of eating quality and that variations in tenderness affect the decision to repurchase. The present paper highlights recent information on the factors that affect tenderness. While the precise aetiology is not fully understood, a number of factors have bee...

In order for livestock industries to consistently produce high quality meat, there must be an understanding of the factors that cause quality to vary, as well as the contribution of genetics. A brief overview of meat tenderness is presented to understand how genotype and environment may interact to influence this trait. Essentially, meat tenderness is determined from the contribution of connect...

with changes in living standards and food consumption pattern, consumers demand quality meat with more emphasis on tenderness which is often not obtained from the aged and spent animals. As a consequence, majority of the meat is losing its popularity and demand. Some quantity of meat produced is used for the development of various comminuted meat products. A practical method for improving tende...

Tenderness is the most important meat quality trait, which is determined by intracellular environment and extracellular matrix. Particularly, specific protein degradation and protein modification can disrupt the architecture and integrity of muscle cells so that improves the meat tenderness. Endogenous proteolytic systems are responsible for modifying proteinases as well as the meat tenderizati...

Our objectives for this manuscript are to review the mechanisms of muscle growth, the biological basis of meat tenderness, and the relationship between these two processes. Muscle growth is determined by hyperplasia and hypertrophy. Muscle cell size is determined by the balance between the amount of muscle protein synthesized and the amount of muscle protein degraded. Current evidence suggests ...

Tenderness has been repeatedly reported as the most important quality aspect of meat. However, a number of studies have shown that a significant portion of retail meat can be considered tough. As a consequence, a significant consumer segment is willing to pay a premium for guaranteed tender meat. However, apart from measuring the shear force, there is no reliable method to predict tenderness. M...