Usage Of Histological And Rheological Techniques In Assessment And Prediction Of Meat Textural Properties

The research carried on a comparative assessment of chicken meat texture using both histological and instrumental - rheological techniques, in order to find out certain correlations between the methods and the possibility to predict one in relation with another. Therefore, 50 samples of Pectoralis major and Pectoralis minor muscles, issued from 50 individuals of Cobb-500 chicken broilers were submitted to paraffin inclusion technique followed by microscopic measurements (Motic Image 3+ software after image acquiring at 400 x magnification), respectively to rheological analysis, using a common Adams consistometer and a Perten Instruments texturometer with Warner-Bratzler shear chamber. The histometric values in Pectoralis minor muscles oscillated between 25.18 and 44.37 mu m thickness of myocites, a muscle density of 579-683 fibers/sqmm of muscle and a proportion of pure muscular tissue of 62.51% vs. 37.49% connective elements. In Pectoralis major muscles, the proportion of pure muscular tissue reached 59.83% while the connective compounds represented 40.17%, which corresponded to a density of 405-669 fibers/sqmm of muscle and to a myocites thickness within the 28.63-47.19 mu m limits. These findings were consistent and highly positive correlated (0.89) with the Warner-Bratzler shear force values (47.10 Newtons in Pectoralis major and 42.63 Newtons in Pectoralis minor muscles) or moderate negatively correlated (-0.53) with the Adams consistency (1,8 Adams units in M. Pectoralis minor and 1,2 Adams units in M. Pectoralis major). Therefore, shear force instrumental assessments could be used as predictors for the histological properties of the meat, including for the tissual composition of muscles (pure muscular vs. connective tissue participation in meat structure).