EFFECTS OF WING RESTRAINTS ON THE OBJECTIVE TEXTURE OF COMMERCIALLY PROCESSED BROILER BREAST MEAT

A physical treatment was applied to broiler carcasses during commercial processing to evaluate its effectiveness in shortening the postmortem time necessary to achieve tenderness in cooked Pectoralis major (P. major) meat. Pectoralis major muscles were stretched by using cable ties to position the wings behind the back of the carcass. The restraints were removed from the carcasses at two postchill times: within 15 min (WR) and after 1 h (WR + 1). Treated carcasses were compared with a control group of carcasses. Pectoralis major muscles were removed from control carcasses and WR carcasses between 10 and 15 min postchill. Muscles were held at 2 C until the next day, when they were cooked. Two 1.9-cm-wide strips, noted as anterior and medial, were removed from each sample and objective texture determined. The experiment was replicated five times with a total of 82, 80, and 79 carcasses evaluated for the control, WR, and WR + 1 groups, respectively. There were significant differences in objective texture due to the physical treatment and location in the muscle. The lowest shear value (5.5 kg) was noted for the WR + 1 group at the anterior location. Significantly lower shear values were noted for the anterior strip compared with the medial strip. Physically restraining the P. major muscles during processing and holding for 1 h postchill resulted in a significant reduction in force to shear broiler breast meat.