Abstract
ABSTRACT Problems with meat quality are usually caused by aberrations in the biochemistry and morphology of individual muscles, as well as by postmortem events. Poultry, like pigs, have been subjected to intense genetic selection for rapid lean muscle growth. The selection traits are most often associated with economic importance rather than biophysical significance, which often results in stress syndromes (e.g. porcine stress syndrome) and pale, soft, exudative (PSE) muscle conditions. The occurrence of PSE muscle and subsequent alterations in meat quality has been shown to be related to increases in muscle size, stressful preslaughter handling conditions, and rate of onset of rigor mortis. Morphological studies have revealed significant increases in fiber size, in addition to structural irregularities in PSE muscle. These structural irregularities include decreased capillary density, hypercontracted (giant) fibers, and myoplasmic calcium loading. The common theme between poultry and swine in the development of PSE muscle is predominately in anaerobic fast‐twitch muscles with low energy lactate metabolism yet accelerated onset of rigor mortis.
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