Abstract
The treatment with calcium chloride is a chemical method to tenderized adult beef that reduce beef hardness and improve rate of ageing resulting more acceptable meat products for consumers [1, 2]. In this study were evaluated the effect of beef cuts injection with 0.4 M sodium chloride (10% w/w), 0.2 M calcium chloride (10% w/w) and 0.4 M calcium chloride (10% w/w), on adult beef at 4 hours post-mortem. The effects generated by samples injection with sodium chloride and calcium chloride was distinguish after 0, 1, 2, 3, 7 days of stored at 4 0C through rigidity index, pH, water holding capacity and cooking losses determination. Between 0 and 24 hours of storage at 4 0C, pH values increased meaningful at all analyzed samples, the smaller values of pH being identified at the control and at the samples injected with CaCl2. After 24 hours of storage at 4 oC, pH values suffer a significant increase but differing in accordance with the nature of samples, after 48 and 72 hours the highest values were identified for the samples injected with 0.4 M CaCl2. The beef cuts injected with sodium chloride and calcium chloride presented increased values of rigidity index as compared to the control resulted an improvement of adult beef tenderness.