Abstract:

Lean pork was used to investigate the relevance between water-holding capacity and color. One portion of lean pork was obtained from the pig carcass and another portion of pork muscles were sampled randomly from the meat market. The results showed that the water holding capacity was independent of the pork color of the same pig carcass while negative correlation between WHC and L value was observed on the samples from different pig carcasses. Within the testing range, pH value of pork was inversely related to its cooking loss while positively correlated to WHC, suggesting that higher pH value was favorable for WHC. With the extension of post-mortem aging, the WHC of the pork samples from the same pig body was enhanced while the cooking loss was decreased.

Key words: pork, color, Water-holding capacity, correlation