Meat tenderness

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Tenderness is a quality of meat gauging how easily it is chewed or cut. Tenderness is a desirable quality, as tender meat is softer, easier to chew, and generally more palatable than harder meat. Consequently, tender cuts of meat typically command higher prices. The tenderness depends on a number of factors including the meat grain, the amount of connective tissue, and the amount of fat. [1] Tenderness can be increased by a number of processing techniques, generally referred to as tenderizing or tenderization.

Contents

Influencing factors

Tenderness is perhaps the most important of all factors impacting meat eating quality, with others being flavor, juiciness, and succulence. [2]

Tenderness is a quality complex to obtain and gauge, and it depends on a number of factors. On the basic level, these factors are meat grain, the amount and composition of connective tissue, and the amount of fat. [1] In order to obtain a tender meat, there is a complex interplay between the animal's pasture, age, species, breed, protein intake, calcium status, stress before and at killing, and how the meat is treated after slaughter. [3]

Meat with the fat content deposited within the steak to create a marbled appearance has always been regarded as more tender than steaks where the fat is in a separate layer. [3] Cooking causes melting of the fat, spreading it throughout the meat and increasing the tenderness of the final product. [1]

Testing

The meat industry strives to produce meat with standardized and guaranteed tenderness, since these characteristics are sought for by the consumers. [4] For that purpose a number of objective tests of tenderness have been developed, gauging meat resistance to shear force, most commonly used being Slice Shear Force test [5] and Warner–Bratzler Shear Force test. [6]

Tenderizing

Techniques for breaking down collagens in meat to make it more palatable and tender are referred to as tenderizing or tenderization.

There are a number of ways to tenderize meat:

Research

Efforts have been made since at least 1970 to use explosives to tenderize meat and a company was founded to try to commercialize the process; as of 2011 it was not yet scalable. [13]


Related Research Articles

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Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking. As a processed meat, the term ham includes both whole cuts of meat and ones that have been mechanically formed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beef</span> Meat from cattle

Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle. Beef can be prepared in various ways; cuts are often used for steak, which can be cooked to varying degrees of doneness, while trimmings are often ground or minced, as found in most hamburgers. Beef contains protein, iron, and vitamin B12. Along with other kinds of red meat, high consumption is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer and coronary heart disease, especially when processed. Beef has a high environmental impact, being a primary driver of deforestation with the highest greenhouse gas emissions of any agricultural product.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beefsteak</span> Flat cut of beef

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">T-bone steak</span> Beefsteak cut from the short loin, including a T-shaped bone with meat on each side

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Ground beef, minced beef or beef mince - often just generically referred to as mince or mincemeat, is beef that has been finely chopped with a knife, meat grinder, mincer or mincing machine. It is used in many recipes including hamburgers, bolognese sauce, meatloaf, meatballs, kofta, burritos, and mince pies.

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Beef aging or ageing is a process of preparing beef for consumption by aging it, in order to break down the connective tissue within the meat.

Restructured steak is a catch-all term to describe a class of imitation beef steaks made from smaller pieces of beef fused together by a binding agent. Its development started from the 1970s. Restructured steak is sometimes made using cheaper cuts of beef such as the hind quarter or fore quarter of beef.

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Collagenases are enzymes that break the peptide bonds in collagen. They assist in destroying extracellular structures in the pathogenesis of bacteria such as Clostridium. They are considered a virulence factor, facilitating the spread of gas gangrene. They normally target the connective tissue in muscle cells and other body organs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meat tenderizer</span> Hand tool used to tenderize slabs of meat

A meat tenderizer or meat pounder is a hand-powered tool used to tenderize slabs of meat in the preparation for cooking. Although a meat tenderizer can be made out of virtually any object, there are three types manufactured specifically for tenderizing meat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ficain</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Actinidain</span> Class of enzymes

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steak</span> Flat cut of meat

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zingibain</span> Cysteine protease enzyme

Zingibain, zingipain, or ginger protease is a cysteine protease enzyme found in ginger rhizomes. It catalyses the preferential cleavage of peptides with a proline residue at the P2 position. It has two distinct forms, ginger protease I (GP-I) and ginger protease II (GP-II).

Artificial marbling is the injection of animal fat or vegetable oil into lean meat in order to simulate the appearance of marbling and attempt to improve the palatability of inexpensive cuts by preventing them from drying out or losing flavour during the freezing or cooking process. Lean cuts of beef are one common target of artificial marbling. The process may also be performed on pork. It has been described as a more technologically advanced form of larding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baseball steak</span> Cut of beef from the top sirloin cap steak

Baseball steak is a center cut of beef taken from the top sirloin cap steak. Baseball steaks differ from sirloin steaks in that the bone and the tenderloin and bottom round muscles have been removed; and the cut is taken from gluteus medius. A baseball steak is essentially a center cut top sirloin steak. This cut of beef is very lean, and is considered very flavorful.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Meat processing : Meat Qualities". Britannica. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  2. ↑ Troy, D.J.; Kerry, J.P. (2010). "Consumer perception and the role of science in the meat industry". Meat Science. 86 (1): 214–226. doi:10.1016/j.meatsci.2010.05.009. PMID   20579814.
  3. 1 2 "The Meat Tenderness Debate". Natural Hub. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  4. ↑ Luciano, F. B.; Anton, A.A; Rosa, C.F. (2007). "BIOCHEMICAL ASPECTS OF MEAT TENDERNESS: A BRIEF REVIEW" (PDF). Arch. Zootec. (56 (R): 1–8).
  5. ↑ Shackelford, S. D.; Wheeler, Ph.D., T. L. (2009). "Slice Shear Force" (PDF). Centennial, Colorado: National Cattlemen’s Beef Association USDA-ARS.
  6. ↑ Wheeler, Tommy L.; Shackelford, Steven D.; Koohmaraie USDA-ARS, Mohammad. "Warner-Bratzler Shear Force Protocol" (PDF). U.S. Meat Animal Research Center.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 McGee, Harold (2004). ON FOOD AND COOKING, The science and lore of the kitchen. Scribner. p. 155. ISBN   978-0-684-80001-1.
  8. 1 2 3 LAROUSSE Gastronomique. Hamlyn. 2000. p. 1204. ISBN   978-0-600-60235-4.
  9. ↑ Madhusankha, G.D.M.P.; Thilakarathna, R.C.N. (2021). "Meat tenderization mechanism and the impact of plant exogenous proteases: A review". Arabian Journal of Chemistry. 14 (2): 102967. doi: 10.1016/j.arabjc.2020.102967 .
  10. ↑ Rossano, R.; Larocca, M.; Polito, T.; Perna, A. M.; Padula, M. C.; Martelli, G.; Riccio, P. (2012). "What Are the Proteolytic Enzymes of Honey and What They Do Tell Us? A Fingerprint Analysis by 2-D Zymography of Unifloral Honeys". PLOS ONE. 7 (11): e49164. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...749164R. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049164 . PMC   3492327 . PMID   23145107.
  11. ↑ Yoon, J. W.; Lee, D. G.; Lee, H. J.; Choe, J.; Jung, S.; Jo, C. (2017). "Microbial, Physicochemical, and Sensory Characteristics of Quality Grade 2 Beef Enhanced by Injection of Pineapple Concentrate and Honey". Korean J Food Sci Anim Resour. 37 (4): 494–501. doi:10.5851/kosfa.2017.37.4.494. PMC   5599569 . PMID   28943761.
  12. ↑ "Tenderizing Meat with a Baking Soda Solution". Cook's Illustrated.
  13. ↑ Abrahams, Marc (5 December 2011). "Best way to tenderise meat? An underwater explosion". The Guardian .


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