THE EFFECT OF LENGTH OF SOAKING IN PAPAIN ON MEAT WATER CONTENT, pH AND TENDERNESS OF CULLED LAYER HENS

The increased number of population growth needs enough food stock to fulfill the food necessity. Proteinsources food stuffs resulted by the farmers, such as meat, egg, or milk, are between the food stock which must be increased. Furthermore, it is known that meat is the primary source of animal protein. Demand rate of chicken meat is four per cent more than its production rate. Chicken meat can be supplied from the poultry farm, either from the broiler hens or from the layer hens. Layer hens have double benefits, beside produc ing eggs, they can also produce meat after their production period over. Unproductive layer hens also can be used to produce meat, and then to be sold as culled layer meat, since they have tough meat (Lengkey, 1991). The broiler industry is gaining rapid momentum and consumer usually do not prefer old culled birds for table use because of the poor quality due to lack of tenderness. The quality of meat for commercial purpose and acceptability depend on the amount and nature of biochemical constituent (Sinku, et al., 2002). Papain is in the dried latex obtained from the papaya fruit (Carica papaya L). It is the protease which is most commonly used for the food processing. Tenderness is considered to be the most important organoleptic characteristic of meat. According to Archile-Contreras et al. (2011), the toughness associated with spent chicken meat is primarily due to the increased cross-linking in the connective tissue of older animals. Culled hens which were being used for meat purpose are going to be discarded by the quality concious consumers due to inherent quality differences especially tenderness of spent hen meat. Therefore, the farmers are facing a problem in disposing their old-unproductive layers. The treatment of proteolytic enzymes is one of the popular methods for meat tenderization. The latex of the papaya plant and its green fruits contains two proteolytic enzymes, papain and chymopapain. The latter is most abundant