Abstract: To investigate the effect of ultrasonic treatment on the quality of goose breast meat, goose breast meat was treated with high-intensity ultrasound at an 800 W power for 42 min (on-time 2 s, off-time 3 s). We examined the effects of ultrasonic treatment and different storage durations (0, 6, 12, 24, 36 and 48 h) at 4 ℃ on goose breast meat tenderness by measuring pH, muscle fibrillation index, cooking loss, shear force, scanning electron microscopy, sodium dodecyl sulfategel electrophoresis of myofibrillar protein and thermodynamics. The results showed that the pH of the ultrasonic treatment group increased, muscle fibrillation index increased significantly, and the cooking loss and shear force significantly reduced when compared with the untreated group (P < 0.05). Moreover, the surface microstructure significantly changed and the heat sensitivity of actin and myosin increased over the untreated group. Additionally, the myofibrillar protein was broken down and actin content was significantly increased with storage time (P < 0.05), thereby significantly improving meat tenderness. Accordingly, ultrasonic treatment could destroy myofibril structure, shorten postmortem aging time, and consequently improve the quality of goose breast meat.

Key words: ultrasound, storage time, tenderness, shear force