25Chapter 2
Technological Quality of Meat for Processing
Susan Brewer
Introduction
For the purposes of this discussion, techno-
logical quality of meat for processing includes
the factors that affect meat quality in general,
whether endogenous or exogenous. Factors
that contribute to the quality of the meat for
processing include the breed of the animal
and its associated characteristics, gene status
within breed, diet and plane of nutrition,
fatness/leanness, rate of postmortem pH and
temperature decline, and postmortem han-
dling such as aging. Ultimately, meat quality
is defi ned in terms of consumer acceptability,
which include tenderness, juiciness and
fl avor, and appearance characteristics such as
color, amount of fat, amount of visible water,
and textural appearance, which have a sig-
nifi cant impact on consumer expected satis-
faction (Brewer et al. 1998, 2001 ). Because
they are the most important traits defi ning
consumer acceptance, tenderness and fl avor
consistency are important (Robbins et al.
2003 ). Factors contributing to the sensory
quality characteristics of meat include breed
(Cameron et al. 1990 ; Lan et al. 1993 ), intra-
muscular fat content (Brewer et al. 2001 ;
Rincker et al. 2008 ), calpastatin and μ - calpain
gene status (Casas et al. 2006 ), Halothane
gene status (Sather et al. 1990 ; Leach et al.
1998 ), ryanodine receptor gene status (Fujii
et al. 1991 ), diet, antemortem handling
(Ohene - Adjai et al. 2003 ), and ultimate pH
(Zhu and Brewer 1998 ).
Breed Effects on Quality of Meat
Livestock breed can affect the quality char-
acteristics of the meat produced, either
because the breed has naturally adapted to
stressful environmental conditions or because
two or more breeds have been purposefully
crossbred to increase prevalence of desirable
qualities. Often these modifi cations improve
one set of attributes at the expense of another.
For example, Brahman cattle are used
extensively in the southwestern United States
because of their tolerance to adverse environ-
mental conditions; however, Brahman car-
casses have tenderness issues. Toughness of
meat from Brahman cattle has been associ-
ated with high levels of calpastatin in the
muscle (Ibrahim et al. 2008 ). The Japanese
Wagyu breed produces highly marbled,
tender meat. Cross breeding Brahman with
Wagyu cattle to produce Waguli cattle, which
have a high degree of marbling and low cal-
pastatin activity in the tissue, results in more
tender meat immediately after slaughter.
Tenderness of meat from Brahman cattle
does catch up with suffi cient aging (14 d).
Schone et al. (2006) reported initial tender-
ness differences in beef from Holstein and
Simmental cattle, in addition to different
responses to aging. Some breed differences
(Nelore, Simmental, Simbrasil) in initial
postmortem beef tenderness are lost after 7
days of aging (Bianchini et al. 2007 ).
According to Hocquette et al. (2006) , cattle