MAINTENANCE OF BEEF TENDERNESS BY INHIBITION OF RIGOR MORTIS

The objective of this research was to evaluate three different methods of affecting meat tenderness by treating pre-rigor muscle. The muscle relaxants (phosphate and magnesium chloride), a glycolytic inhibitor (sodium citrate) and microwave cooking were tested for improvement in post-rigor tenderness. The results indicate that microwave cooking of pre-rigor muscle produced a significant tenderization effect when compared to post-rigor cooking and the magnitude of this difference proved to be greater than 50%. Sodium hexametaphosphate, sodium pyrophos-phate-sodium hexametaphosphate and sodium citrate also produced an increase in tenderness when compared with their controls.