Advances in the understanding and measurement of meat texture

A major driver for consumer acceptability of meat is cooked texture, which encompasses descriptors such as tenderness, hardness, chewiness, and graininess. Cooked meat texture is determined by connective tissue, myofibrillar proteins, and related components, the contributions of which vary according to concentration, quaternary structure, and strength of intermolecular bonds. Sensory panel is the gold standard for determination of cooked meat texture, but is time-consuming, expensive, and samples of interest are destroyed in the process. Cooked meat texture therefore has been characterized by numerous mechanical technologies, the most popular of which is Warner-Bratzler shear force, although it also destroys the sample of interest. Cooked meat texture has most recently been described using visible and near-infrared light spectroscopy, which has shown substantial promise as a noninvasive, in-line predictive tool, and rapid evaporative ionization mass spectrometry (REIMS). Development of technology that effectively, accurately, and reproducibly predicts cooked meat texture from the raw product will rely upon understanding how meat components affect meat texture.