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White striping defect (appearance of white striations parallel to muscle fiber on surface of breast) is considered an emerging issue in chicken breast meat which is related to increasing growth rate of modern hybrid birds. This study was aimed at evaluating the effect of white striping on chemical composition and nutritional value of chicken breast meat. During three replications, a total of 108 Pectoralis major muscles representing three degrees of white striping (absence=normal; presence classified in 2 levels as moderate or severe) were selected to determine proximate composition (moisture, protein, lipid and collagen) as well as sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar protein profile by sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis. The results showed that both severe and moderate white-striped fillets had higher fat content (2.53 vs 1.46 vs 0.78%; P<0.001), lower protein level (20.9 vs 22.2 vs 22.9%; P<0.001), decreased quality of protein as proven by higher collagen content (1.30 vs 1.37 vs 1.43%; P<0.001), and different pattern on myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic fractions when compared to normal fillets. Moreover, severe white-striped fillets exhibited higher energy content (450.7 vs 421.1 kJ/100g; P<0.01) with respect to normal meat. In conclusion, there was a large worsening of nutritional value of chicken breast meat following occurrence of white striping and this might impair consumer attitude towards poultry meat.
Petracci et al. (Wed,) studied this question.