The water-holding capacity of meat: A reference analytical method

Tadeusz Szmańko; Tomasz Lesiów; Justyna Górecka

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2021.129727

The water-holding capacity of meat: A reference analytical method

Food Chem. 2021 Mar 29:357:129727. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2021.129727. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Tadeusz Szmańko¹, Tomasz Lesiów², Justyna Górecka¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Animal Products Technology and Quality Management, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wroclaw 50-375, Poland.
² Department of Agroengineering and Quality Analysis, Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Wroclaw 35-345, Poland. Electronic address: tomasz.lesiow@ue.wroc.pl.

PMID: 33964628
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2021.129727

Abstract

The water-holding capacity (WHC) of meat affects its characteristics and is a crucial criterion for assessing meat quality. However, there is no precise analytical method for determining meat WHC. This study aimed to develop a precise and widely applicable method to determine the WHC of turkey and pork samples. A filter-paper press method was used to present WHC as water content (%) before and after pressing (WHC₁) or water content (%) after pressing relative to the fat-free dry matter components of the tested meat (WHC₃). In cases where pressing released both fat and muscle juice, procedures to calculate WHC₂ or WHC₄ were applied. This increased the precision of WHC values calculated using formulas 1 and 3 (for WHC₁ and WHC₃ values, respectively). Expressing WHC as WHC₃ ensured absolute precision in determining WHC. This study successfully developed a reference analytical method for accurately determining meat WHC.

Keywords: Fat-free dry matter content; Filter paper press method; Meat water-holding capacity; Reference analytical method.