Fundamentals of Water Holding Capacity (WHC) of Meat

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
   1. Objectives
   2. Learning goals
   3. Teacher page
2. List of Abbreviations used in this Learning Resource
3. Section I: Introduction and Significance of WHC
   1. What is WHC?
   2. Overview of Proteins, Fat, pH and Water and WHC
   3. Compartments for Holding Water in Meat
   4. Activity - Section I
4. Section II: Major Factors Affecting WHC
   1. Role of Animal Genetics and WHC
   2. Role of Pre-harvest Handling of Pigs on WHC
   3. Conversion of Muscle-to-Meat Issues and WHC
   4. Muscle Extensibility and Rigor Mortis
   5. Activity - Section II
5. Section III: Mechanism for Holding of Water in Pork
   1. Concepts for holding of Water in Meat
   2. How is Water Held in Meat?
   3. Graphic Representation of WHC and Important Concepts
   4. Examples of Extrinsic Factors Affecting WHC of Processed Meats
   5. Activity - Section III
6. Section IV: Fundamental Science of Water Holding Capacity
   1. Expanding the Knowledge of WHC
   2. The Assignment
   3. Activity - Section IV
7. Section V: Methods for Determining WHC
   1. Complexity of Measuring WHC
   2. What Moisture Categories of Water need to be Measured?
   3. Video: Great Visualization of four WHC Methods
   4. Methods for Measuring WHC of Meat
   5. Activity - Section V
8. Section VI: Recent Advances in Measuring & Monitoring WHC
   1. Need for Fast, Real-time, Non-destructive WHC Methods
   2. Potential Fast and Non-destructive Methods
   3. Activity - Section VI
9. Selected References related to WHC
10. References: Q-Pork Chain & Other Instrumental Methodology for WHC
11. Completion
    1. Comments
    2. Self assessment
    3. Evaluation
12. Acknowledgement

Expanding the Knowledge of WHC

This section is for the brave-at-heart and those that really want to delve into the fundamental aspects of WHC. If this is not for you, move to the next Section V.

Many manuscripts, book chapters, oral presentations, and abstracts have been written on WHC, but a complete understanding of WHC has yet to be established. If someone really wants to pursue WHC and add to their fundamental understanding of WHC, they may benefit from some self-guided study of the topic. The assumption is that individuals pursuing this section will have some knowledge of biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics, and physical chemistry among other subjects.

First you will be directed to the list of references. This would be a great place to initiate some in-depth, scholarly reading about WHC. You could easily replace these references with another list of significant contributions; so if your favorite WHC papers are not listed, they could easily be in the list. If you look at just 1 or 2 of these references, you surely will be impressed by the knowledge and application of fundamental muscle biochemistry, chemistry, and physical principles that are needed to conduct new, definitive research of elaborating the unknown aspects of WHC.

We are suggesting two activities to get you into the details of WHC. One will involve reading a recent paper and the second will involve working through a Power Point presentation related to the manuscript. Then some suggested self-guided activities are presented to help further your detailed understanding of the complexity and yet unknown aspects of WHC. Ideally, it would be nice to have discussions with one or more people with a mutual interest in WHC of meat, but significant scholarly gains can be obtained by dedicated individual work.