Table 2.

Aged postmortem (14 d) meat quality traits of Duroc- and Pietrain-sired pigs collected on the ventral side or chop face of the longissimus muscle

	Sire
Item	Pietrain	Duroc	SEM	P value
Pigs, n	80	80
Ventral
Instrumental color1
Lightness, L*	50.19	49.61	0.35	0.19
Redness, a*	10.49	10.61	0.28	0.58
Yellowness, b*	5.09	4.80	0.33	0.15
Subjective evaluations2
Visual color score	3.29	3.42	0.09	0.09
Visual marbling score	2.16	2.39	0.17	0.03
Subjective firmness score	3.70	3.71	0.04	0.82
Ultimate pH	5.58	5.63	0.03	<0.001
Aged loin wt, kg	3.58	3.60	0.09	0.72
Purge loss3, %	7.31	6.97	0.19	0.20
Chop
Instrumental color1
Lightness, L*	52.22	51.79	0.58	0.42
Redness, a*	9.90	10.04	0.27	0.46
Yellowness, b*	4.50	4.43	0.36	0.75
Subjective evaluations
Visual color score	3.21	3.32	0.05	0.07
Visual marbling score	2.04	2.68	0.10	<0.001
Subjective firmness score	3.08	3.15	0.07	0.19
Moisture, %	73.04	72.65	0.16	0.02
Extractable lipid, %	3.14	3.56	0.14	0.02
Warner-Bratzler shear force4, kg	2.25	2.40	0.09	0.02
Cook loss5, %	20.08	20.73	1.04	0.06

¹L* measures darkness to lightness (greater L* indicates a lighter color), a* measures redness (greater a* indicates a redder color), and b* measures yellowness (greater b* indicates a more yellow color).

²Evaluations based on NPPC (1991, 1999) standards, where 1 = visually palest color and 6 = visually darkest color; 1 = visually the least marbling and 6 = visually the most marbling; and 1 = softest and 6 = firmest.

³Purge loss = ([1 d weight, kg − 14 d weight, kg]/1 d weight, kg) × 100.

⁴Chops used for Warner-Bratzler shear force were cooked to an internal temperature of 63 °C.

⁵Cook loss = ([initial weight, kg − cooked weight, kg]/initial weight, kg) × 100. Chops were cooked to an internal temperature of 63 °C.