Texture Profile Characteristics In Horse Meat

  • Emanuiel Constantin DIACONU Department of Fundamental Sciences in Animal Husbandry – University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine IaÅŸi
  • Roxana LAZAR Department of Fundamental Sciences in Animal Husbandry – University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine IaÅŸi
  • Nicoleta GAINA (DIACONU) Department of Fundamental Sciences in Animal Husbandry – University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine IaÅŸi
  • Marius Mihai CIOBANU Department of Fundamental Sciences in Animal Husbandry – University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine IaÅŸi
  • Paul Corneliu BOISTEANU Department of Fundamental Sciences in Animal Husbandry – University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine IaÅŸi
Keywords: horses, palatability, texture profile

Abstract

Meat had and has an essential role in human nutrition and human development. Due to perceptions of heart disease caused by eating red meat, consumers seeking alternatives to achieve the necessary protein, also looking the piece of meat that owns most of the organoleptic properties: tenderness, juiciness, etc.

A significant influence on meat texture has the physiological function of the muscle in relation to its anatomical position, age at slaughter, the type of nutrition offered to horses.

The aim of this paper is to analyze different tissues muscle from horses slaughtered in our country, in terms of textural characteristics involved: hardness, cohesiveness, adhesiveness, gumminess, elasticity, chewiness.

Textural profile (TPA) of these samples was performed using dynamometer Llyod Plus LPF and expression of results were made possible by embedded software NEXYGEN Ondio.

Most parameters that describe the texture of horse meat showed insignificant differences between the 4 groups of muscles, M. Longissimus dorsi recorded their highest values. Significant differences were obtained in the case of cohesivity, M. Gracilis recorded the highest values (0.49 ± 0.01), and lower limit being found in M. rectus abdominis with an average of 0.42 ± 0.02 .

The results obtained for all the parameters that describe textural profile help us to appreciate the horse meat quality, assessment which may lead to interpreting palatability of this kind of meat. Also, by determination of these physical parameters we assess the conditions that the meat is subjected to when the mastication take place.

Published
2014-11-21