Relationship between animal age, intramuscular fat, cooking loss, pH, shear force and eating quality of aged meat from sheep
D. L. Hopkins A E , R. S. Hegarty B , P. J. Walker C and D. W. Pethick DA NSW Department of Primary Industries, Centre for Sheep Meat Development, PO Box 129, Cowra, NSW 2794, Australia.
B NSW Department of Primary Industries, Beef Industry Centre, The University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.
C Victorian Institute of Animal Science, Agriculture Victoria, 600 Sneydes Road, Werribee, Vic. 3030, Australia.
D Division of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia.
E Corresponding author. Email: david.hopkins@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture 46(7) 879-884 https://doi.org/10.1071/EA05311
Submitted: 14 October 2005 Accepted: 2 May 2006 Published: 8 June 2006
Abstract
The relationships between sensory traits (tenderness, juiciness, flavour and overall liking) and objective measures, such as shear force, intramuscular fat, cooking loss, pH and animal age, were derived for M. longissimus thoracis et lumborum (LL) from 471 lamb and sheep carcasses. Tenderness could be predicted with the most accuracy (R2 = 0.24) and flavour with the highest precision (r.s.d. = 7.5 units) when using the objective measures, which may be in part due to the small variation in the range of shear force values of the samples (all carcasses electrically stimulated and meat aged for 5 days) and the use of consumer panels for the assessment of sensory traits. The ultimate pH of the LL, the rate of decline in pH in the LL or the predicted temperature at pH 6.0 were not significant predictors of the sensory traits when tested on a subsample of the carcasses. The model coefficients indicated that all sensory traits (tenderness, flavour, juiciness and overall liking) declined as shear force and age increased, and as intramuscular fat percentage decreased. This translated into a decline of 16 points on average for tenderness and 13 points for overall liking when LL samples from 68.5-month-old sheep were compared with those from unweaned lambs, when adjusted to the same level of intramuscular fat and shear force. Predictions of the sensory traits at varying levels of shear force were made and show that at 49 Newtons (N), the overall liking score would be 51 and the tenderness score 48. Derived relationships between objective meat quality measures and sensory traits suggest that to achieve a failure rate of no more than 10% for loin meat when eaten, it must have a shear force of about 27 N or less.
Additional keywords: consumer, eating quality, intramuscular fat, tenderness.
Acknowledgments
The assistance of Andrew Blakely, Briana Daly and Paul Reynolds (The University of New England), Frank Shaw (Food Science Australia), David Stanley, Bernie Munro, Jayce Morgan, Reg Woodgate, Joe Brunner, Erica Hansch, Bill Johns and Stuart McClelland (NSW Department of Primary Industries), Matt Kerr, Paul Meredith and Paul Weston (Department of Primary Industries Vic.) and Malcolm Boyce, Barbara Waldoch, Ken Chong, Robert Davidson and Tim Hilder (Murdoch University) in the conduct of the experiments that supplied the data used in this paper is noted with appreciation. Meat & Livestock Australia provided support for this work and the Australian Sheep CRC provided supplementary funding.
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