Prediction of technological quality (cooking loss and Napole Yield) of pork based on fresh meat characteristics

In order to investigate if cooking loss and Napole Yield can be predicted from various fresh meat characteristics, pH (1, 15, 30, 60, 120 min and 24 h post mortem), temperature (1, 15, 30, 60, 120 min and 24 h post mortem), water-holding capacity (Honikelʹs drip loss method and centrifugation loss), and NMR T2 relaxation 24 h post mortem were measured in fresh porcine M. longissimus dorsi from 102 Hampshire crossbreeds of known RN− genotype. Subsequently, cooking loss and Napole Yield were determined on cooked and cured, cooked samples, respectively, and partial least squares regression (PLS) was carried out to investigate possible intercorrelations between the physico-chemical measurements performed on the fresh meat and cooking loss/Napole Yield. Significant correlations were found between NMR T2 relaxation measured in fresh pork 24 h post mortem and the cooking loss (R=0.64) and Napole Yield (R=0.58), whereas no correlations were found between traditionally applied methods such as pH measurements, Honikelʹs method and centrifugation, and the cooking loss/Napole Yield. Consequently, it is concluded that NMR T2 relaxation characteristics of fresh pork in contrast to traditional fresh meat characteristics contain information about factors of importance for cooking loss/Napole Yield from cooked uncured/cured pork. The result implies that low-field (LF) NMR data from fresh meat reflects information about water compartmentalisation and mobility that is partly decisive for subsequent heat-induced changes of importance for the distribution of water within the cooked meat. In addition, the obtained results show that LF NMR data measured on fresh meat also seems to contain information about the inherent water of importance for the technological characteristics of the meat even when the meat is cured before cooking.