Inconsistency and variability in tenderness have been identified as a major problem facing the meat industry (Morgan et al., 1991). Tenderness increases with increasing time of postmortem storage (Calkins and Seideman, 1988; Goll et al., 1964; Wheeler and Koohmaraie, 1994), and it has generally been assumed that part of this increase is caused by postmortem proteolysis mediated primarily by the...

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of sampling methodology on the relationship between longissimus tenderness and measures of biochemical meat traits. Sampling methodology included measurements of sarcomere length, collagen concentration, and postmortem desmin proteolysis on raw samples and measurements of these same traits on the same cooked meat used for shear force measu...

The objective of this study was to determine the relative contributions of Piedmontese inheritance (0, 25, 50, or 75%) and myostatin genotype (+/+, mh/+, and mh/mh) to tenderness of four major muscles. Matings were made to produce animals with 0 (+/+), 1 (mh/+), or 2 (mh/mh) inactive myostatin alleles that were known to result in normal muscling, heavy muscling, and extremely heavy muscling, re...