ABSTRACT
Flavor, juiciness, and tenderness in›uence the palatability of meat. Among these traits, tenderness is ranked as the most important for beef meat (Thompson 2002) but has lesser in›uence in sheep meat (Thompson et al. 2005). The three factors that determine meat tenderness are “background toughness,” the toughening phase, and the tenderization phase. The toughening and tenderization phases take place during the postmortem storage or aging period. The effect of postmortem storage on tenderness is illustrated in Figure 6.1. Background toughness exists at the time of slaughter and does not change during the storage period as it is due to the connective tissue matrix that supports the muscle. Although this tissue may degrade during storage, when cooked meat toughness is determined, this degradation is not important (Purslow 2005).
