Relationships among Instrumental Tenderness Parameters, Meat Quality Traits, and Histochemical Characteristics in Porcine Longissimus dorsi Muscle

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between instrumental tenderness parameters and histochemical characteristics in the porcine longissimus dorsi muscle, and to investigate a comparison between tenderness parameters such as the Warner-Bratzler shear-force (WBS) and texture profile analysis (TPA). A negative relationship between WBS and fiber area was observed. However, there was no significant relationship between hardness and muscle fiber area. The percentage of fiber type IIb exhibited a positive correlation with hardness. There was a negative relationship between the type IIa composition percentage and hardness. This study showed that some muscle fiber characteristics were related to WBS and TPA parameters, especially hardness.