Muscle fibre orientation and its effect on measurements of tenderness of bovine longissimus dorsi muscle

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Abstract
Summary: The muscle fibre orientation within a particular cooked beef steak was found to vary considerably and to be markedly affected by vacuum packaging, freezing and/or cooking. Shear force values, initial‐bite tenderness (panel) and cooking loss were highly dependent on, and overall tenderness (panel) was only slightly dependent on muscle fibre orientations. These measures were affected by fibre orientation to a greater extent in tough than in tender meat. At each of three fixed muscle fibre orientation, correlations between tenderness measures were significant (P<0.05), their magnitude depending on the fibre orientation. At a fixed fibre angle correlations of tenderness measures with cooking losses were not significant. However, on a withinanimal basis, cooking loss was related to shear value and to initial‐bite tenderness apparently through an effect of fibre orientation. This effect may constitute a major source of variation in the measurement of tenderness and cooking loss.