ABSTRACT
Meat quality depends on a high number of variables
from the farm to the table. Some of the most important
are related to antemortem treatment of animals. For
instance, the amount of intramuscular fat is closely
related to genetics; the type of feed has a strong
influence on the fatty acids profile, especially in
monogastric animals like pigs; the amount of myoglo-
bin, which is responsible for the red color of meat,
increases with age; some sexual hormones may affect
flavor, and the environment may introduce contami-
nants, etc. (1). In addition, there are other variables
such as slaughter practices, postmortem changes,
carcass handling at slaughterhouse, storage, and
cooking practices (2). All these factors introduce a
high variability in meat quality. Thus, the availability
of techniques to measure quality factors is extremely
important for standardizing quality as it will be deci-
sive for consumers’ acceptability. This chapter sum-
marizes methodologies and the latest developments
for measuring the quality factors of meats.
