Table 5.
Meat quality characteristics, myofibril fragmentation index (MFI) and texture profile analysis (TPA) of the three sheep breeds (n = 8/group).
| Characteristic | Breed | Limits | SEM | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awassi | Harri | Najdi | Minimum | Maximum | ||
| pHu | 5.82b | 5.80b | 5.89a | 5.60 | 5.90 | 0.02 |
| Cooking loss% | 34.54a | 33.47a | 28.96b | 22.12 | 41.81 | 0.86 |
| WHC | 1.23 | 1.38 | 1.41 | 0.23 | 1.53 | 0.05 |
| Drip loss% | 4.33 | 3.73 | 3.88 | 2.60 | 6.60 | 0.23 |
| Ultimate color values | ||||||
| L* | 34.63 | 33.50 | 35.39 | 31.05 | 40.75 | 0.54 |
| a* | 16.62 | 16.49 | 16.22 | 14.24 | 18.98 | 1.40 |
| b* | 5.76 | 5.17 | 4.91 | 3.92 | 7.29 | 0.18 |
| Chroma (C*) | 17.60 | 17.29 | 16.97 | 14.87 | 20.08 | 0.30 |
| b*/a* Ratio | 0.35 | 0.31 | 0.30 | 0.22 | 0.40 | 0.01 |
| Hue Angle (H°) | 19.14 | 17.42 | 16.79 | 12.63 | 22.03 | 0.50 |
| MFI | 110.87a | 104.0a | 77.56b | 45.70 | 153.55 | 6.27 |
| SL (μm) | 1.85b | 1.79a | 1.63b | 1.26 | 2.10 | 0.04 |
| *TPA | ||||||
| Shear force (N/cm2) | 32.17 | 29.03 | 28.34 | 18.54 | 38.93 | 0.13 |
| Hardness (N/cm2) | 3.83b | 6.47a | 6.67a | 3.04 | 13.04 | 0.06 |
| Springiness | 0.58 | 0.60 | 0.61 | 0.49 | 0.70 | 0.01 |
| Cohesiveness | 0.53 | 0.50 | 0.53 | 0.41 | 0.59 | 0.01 |
| Chewiness | 0.13b | 0.21a,b | 0.23a | 0.13 | 0.43 | 0.02 |
a,b
Means within rows with different superscripts are significantly different (p < 0.05).
*
TPA, texture profile analysis.