The traditional meat-quality indicators, marbling and maturity, fall short of accurately predicting palatability in young, well-fed uniform types of animals. Researchers have endeavored not only to identify more accurate indicators of meat quality, but also to understand how the early-postmortem conditions are related to meat quality. Recent evidence suggests that the combination of high muscle pH and high postmortem temperature enhances meat tenderness greatly within a relatively short period of time after slaughter, the mechanism being attributed to the rapid disruption of Z-lines. The combination of high temperature and rapid pH decline at early-postmortem hours tends to produce tough meat, except for electrically stimulated carcasses. The tenderization of low-pH meat takes place gradually during the aging process, which is greatly shortened at elevated temperatures. The intermediate-pH meat shows the least degree of tenderization, resulting in the least tender meat, regardless of temperature. Among the several potentially useful indices of meat quality, fat thickness and early-postmortem muscle pH appear to be the most promising criteria for early assessment of meat quality in young, well-fed animals. Sarcomere length, myofibril fragmentation index and the presence of 30,000-dalton component are also closely related to meat tenderness, yet time-consuming procedures to measure these characteristics limit their practical usefulness at the present time. As more basic knowledge of postmortem biochemical and structural changes under various environmental and physiological conditions is accumulated, meat scientists will be able to predict meat quality more accurately and also develop postmortem technologies to enhance palatability.
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Y. B. Lee (1986) studied this question.