Maintenance of Beef Tenderness by Inhibition of Rigor Mortis

The objective of this research was to evaluate three different methods of affecting meat tenderness by treating pre‐rigor muscle. The muscle relaxants (phosphate and magnesium chloride), a glycolytic inhibitor (sodium citrate) and microwave cooking were tested for improvement in post‐rigor tenderness. The results indicate that microwave cooking of pre‐rigor muscle produced a significant tenderization effect when compared to post‐rigor cooking and the magnitude of this difference proved to be greater than 50%. Sodium hexametaphosphate, sodium pyrophos‐phate‐sodium hexametaphosphate and sodium citrate also produced an increase in tenderness when compared with their controls.