Changes that happen with aging have an effect on food texture perception and oral processing behaviour. Mastication and saliva incorporation are two major aspects of oral processing which can be used to evaluate the texture perception of food. This study aimed to investigate inter-oral responses of healthy individuals during chewing in relation to cooked meat texture. Mastication variables were recorded during the chewing process and boluses were collected and analysed for saliva impregnation and particle size distribution. Increasing hardness of meat did not change the number or duration of chewing cycles, but particle breakdown was significantly increased (P < 0.05) with the hardness of meat. As a result more saliva was required to agglomerate harder particles in order to make a safe swallow cohesive bolus. Two different groups were identified in relation to texture responses where one group was able to swallow samples with less saliva incorporated into it and cohesiveness was due to less fragmented muscle fibres and meat juice whereas other group had relatively higher saliva incorporation to obtain cohesiveness of particles.