| Studies were conducted to determine the influence of raw breast meat color variation on the quality attributes of raw and cooked meat. Broiler breast fillets were obtained from commercial processing plants based on being either lighter than normal (light), normal (normal), or darker than normal (dark). There were significant differences among the three color groups in lightness (L*), redness (a*), yellowness (b*), pH, water-holding capacity (WHC) and emulsification capacity (EC). All color values increased after 24 hours storage. There was a significant negative relationship between raw meat L* and raw muscle pH. Light meat was associated with low pH, low EC and low WHC. Raw muscle pH had significant positive correlation with both EC and WHC. WHC had a significant correlation with a*, moisture and pH.; For the chemical composition, there were no significant differences in moisture, total lipid, iron, and glycogen between three groups. The protein and ash contents for the dark meat group were significantly higher than that in light meat. There was no difference in total saturated, total monounsaturated and total polyunsaturated fatty acids among three color groups even though dark meat had significantly higher values in C18:0, C20:4, and lower in C16:1 than light meat. Significant differences existed in protein, total saturated lipids, total monounsaturated fatty acids among the three processing plant sources of breast meat.; When the fillets were marinaded and cooked, the differences of L*, a*, b*, and pH of light and dark breast meat became narrow, compared with the differences of raw meat. Raw meat L* had significant negative correlations with raw meat a*, raw meat pH, with marinaded meat a*, marinaded meat pH, cooked meat a*, and cooked meat pH. Raw meat L* and a* had significant correlations with marinade pickup, moisture, shear force value and cooking yield of cooked meat. However, raw meat pH had no significant correlation with those parameters. Cooking yields had significant positive correlation with moisture contents of cooked meat. These results indicated that raw broiler breast meat color variation can not only be related with meat WHC, EC, pH, chemical composition profile, marination and cooking properties, but also the L* may be used as some indicators of meat physical property. |
