Tenderness of Poultry Meat

PROCESSING procedures have been reported as exerting a major effect on tenderness of poultry meat. Gainer, Stewart and Lowe (1951) pointed out the detrimental effects of excessive machine picking. Wise and Stadelman (1957) confirmed this effect with commercially used pickers. The effects of scalding on tenderness of chicken meat after aging was reported by Shannon, Marion and Stadelman (1957). They found that the harmful effect was a result of time and temperature of scalding. Similar observations were made by Klose et al. (1959) for turkeys and by Pool et al. (1959) for chickens. The purpose of the research reported herein was to expand the earlier observations relative to effects of scalding on tenderness. Young, turkey hens were used throughout these studies. The turkeys were placed in crates at the farm and transported to the processing plant prior to 8:00 a.m. each day. They were slaughtered about 2 hours after…