Abstract
Data have been presented which indicated that limited feeding prior to slaughter decreased the following: fill, live shrink, liver weight, and tenderness scores of the longissimus dorsi muscle; the evaporation loss in cooking the psoas major muscle; percent reflectance when the amber, green and blue tristimulus filters were used, of the raw quadriceps femoris muscle; and the Munsell color value of the raw quadriceps femoris muscle. This treatment increased the pH of the psoas major and quadriceps femoris muscles and the shear force value of the longissimus dorsi muscle. This treatment also made the longissimus dorsi muscle darker. Stress prior to slaughter increased the following: live shrink; liver weight; the pH of the psoas major and quadriceps femoris muscles; juiciness score of the psoas major muscle; the shear force value of the longissimus dorsi muscle; and percent reflectance, using amber, green and blue tristimulus filters, of the cooked psoas major muscle. This treatment decreased the following: flavor and aroma scores of the psoas major muscle; texture and tenderness scores of the longissimus dorsi muscle; the evaporation loss in cooking the psoas major muscle; the total water and dry matter loss in cooking the psoas major and quadriceps femoris muscles; the percent reflectance of the raw longissimus dorsi, psoas major and quadriceps femoris muscles, using amber, green and blue tristimulus filters; the expressible water of the raw psoas major and quadriceps femoris muscles; and the expressible water of the cooked psoas major muscles. Stress darkened all three raw muscles. Copyright © . .