Capacity of meat

Honikel, K.O. 1987. How to measure the waterholding capacity of meat Recommendation of standardized methods. In Evaluation and Control... 

Swift, C.E., Lockett, C.. and Fryer, P.J. 1961. Comminuted meat emulsions—The capacity of meat for emulsifying fat. Food Technology 15 468-472. 

Hellendoom, E.W. 1962. Water binding capacity of meat as affected by phosphates. Food Technol. 16 119-124. 

When an animal or plant is killed, its cells become more permeable to moisture as pointed out by Potter [54]. When the tissue is blanched or cooked, the cells may become still more permeable to moisture. Generally, cooked vegetable, meat, or fish dried more easily than their fresh counterparts, provided cooking does not cause excessive shrinkage or toughening [54], Cooking also results in a decrease in waterholding capacity of meat products [83]. 

The changes in water holding capacity of meat resulting from ATP transition to IMP are dealt with in Section 12.5. Unlike purines, pyrimidine nucleotide content in muscle is very low (Table 12.9). 

Phosphate (P04)—Phosphate is added to increase the water-binding capacity of meat its use increases yields up to 10%. Also, it enhances juiciness of the cooked product. Federal regulations restrict the amount of phosphates to (1) not to exc 0.5% in the finished product, and (2) not more than 5% in the pickle solution based on 10% pumping pickle. The addition of phosphate must be declared on the label. 

---