Influence of cooling storage on physical and sensory properties of vacuum packed broiler breast meat

Meat softening is used in culinary and meat processing, which is the final part of meat technology. In this way, it is easier to digest meat in the digestive tract of people. The softening of meat is especially important due to the fact that the number of people over the age of 60 in the world is constantly increasing, with poor tooth status and various oral diseases. For this population, food needs to be modified to allow its nutritional value (macro and micronutrients) to be utilized.Meat tendering procedures can be divided into physical and chemical. The oldest of the chemical procedures is certainly the enzymatic softening with endoenzymes of meat, which man met empirically while he was a hunter. Postmortem endoenzymes play a significant role in softening the meat, ie its maturation. Proteolytic enzymes (calpains, proteases, cathepsins) are involved in this process, which affect the degradation of myofibrils and cytoskeleton proteins. Calpains are cysteine proteases that destroy myofibril proteins (tropomyosin, troponin T, troponin I, C-protein, connectin, tiptin, vinculin, and desmin).Broiler breast meat (Cobb 500) without visible myopathies was used in this study. The meat was deboned, vacuumed and stored at + 3 ° C for seven days. On the first, fourth and seventh days of storage, the color (“L”, “a” and “b” values), pH value and texture (Instron 4301) were tested and sensory evaluation was performed (odor, taste, aftertaste, chewability, juiciness and overall impression). The pH value of the meat increased from 5.89 on the first day to 6.17 on the seventh day. The parameters of the color value decreased from the first to the seventh day (“L” value from 59.98 to 57.36, “a” value from 2.28 to 2.07 and “b” value from 7.40 to 6.63) . The texture of the breast meat decreased from 47.91 N to 43.91 N. Sensory scores increased from the first to the seventh day. Examination of physical parameters (pH, color, texture) and sensory evaluation of broiler breast meat revealed statistically significant differences (p