How Muscle Structure and Composition Influence Meat and Flesh Quality

Abstract

Skeletal muscle consists of several tissues, such as muscle fibers and connective and adipose tissues. This review aims to describe the features of these various muscle components and their relationships with the technological, nutritional, and sensory properties of meat/flesh from different livestock and fish species. Thus, the contractile and metabolic types, size and number of muscle fibers, the content, composition and distribution of the connective tissue, and the content and lipid composition of intramuscular fat play a role in the determination of meat/flesh appearance, color, tenderness, juiciness, flavor, and technological value. Interestingly, the biochemical and structural characteristics of muscle fibers, intramuscular connective tissue, and intramuscular fat appear to play independent role, which suggests that the properties of these various muscle components can be independently modulated by genetics or environmental factors to achieve production efficiency and improve meat/flesh quality.

Meat characteristics from four different cutting parts of Cherry Valley duck

“…Type IIB white breast muscle has higher glycogen content thus its pH post mortem declines more than in type I red leg muscle [9]. [12] stated that pH during post mortem storage decreased faster in fast glycolytic muscle (breast) than in slow oxidative muscle (leg).…”

Relación de la dieta con el color y la terneza de la carne vacuna

“…Las fibras rojas están más vascularizadas y poseen mayor capacidad oxidativa, debido a un mayor contenido de mitocondrias y mioglobina, en comparación con las fibras blancas que tienen metabolismo glicolítico (Ryu y Kim, 2005;Popp et al, 2015;Listrat et al, 2016). Las fibras intermedias, como su nombre lo indica, tienen metabolismo oxidativo-glicolítico.…”

Invited review: Measurable biomarkers linked to meat quality from different pig production systems

“…Muscle is a complex tissue composed of several cell or tissue types, including muscle fibres of different types, adipose cells, neural cells, endothelial cells, and connective tissue (Bailey and Light, 1989;Gandemer, 2002;Purslow, 2005;Listrat et al, 2016). Muscle fibre types include type I, IIA, IIB, and IIX (Lefaucheur, 2010).…”

“…These types differ in metabolic and contractile properties: type I exhibits oxidative metabolism and slow contraction speed, whereas type II fibres are fast fibres and exhibit oxydo-glycolytic (IIA and IIX) or glycolytic metabolism (IIB). Myofibre typing directly determines not only the meat quality trait colour but also the in vivo and post-mortem muscle energy metabolism, which has a major impact on technological and sensory quality traits (Henckel et al, 2000;Listrat et al, 2016). Among other things, the energy content of the muscle fibres -e.g.…”

“…The CSA of the latter two is similar; this histological property is related to drip loss, an important meat quality determinant (Lefaucheur, 2010). Adipose tissue, both from intermuscular fat and intramuscular fat, is an important factor for meat taste (Cameron and Enser, 1991;Fernandez et al, 1999), but too much of it is not appreciated by consumers: generally 2.5-3 % intramuscular fat is considered optimal (Listrat et al, 2016). Thus, meat quality is a complex trait affected by multiple components and moreover can be fully determined only a few days after slaughter when the ageing processes have occurred.…”