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

Section V: Methods for Determining WHC

Objective of Section V: To be able to describe commonly used methods to measure WHC and to know their advantages, disadvantages, and the key physical and chemical factors affecting these methods.

Tracking WHC by the various segments of the meat industry is difficult at best, and selecting methods to monitor WHC is not an exact science. The biggest challenge is to determine when and what aspect (for research, raw material characterization, process development, and monitoring for quality and process control) of WHC needs to be measured. Obviously, no one measurement is going to be effective. Rather, a "collective strategy" of identifying critical points (as in a safety HACCP plan) in the product flow diagram, which may start at the farm and include transportation, lairage, slaughter, chilling, fabrication, packaging, storage, freezing or thermal processing, etc. Multiple measurements can be taken at various segments of the operation and then collectively evaluated to help monitor those segments as well as the overall production scheme.

In many operations, a few measurements may be used to help monitor just one aspect of the production chain, such as the combined effects of chilling and pH decline on drip losses over a specified time and conditions, the purge accumulation in vacuum packaged cuts, or cooking losses. Care must be taken to avoid erroneous results as described in the following example. PSE, normal, and DFD retail cuts were displayed, and the purge loss in the package during display was calculated. Surprisingly, the data indicated that the PSE chops (not the high WHC, DFD meat) had the least drip loss and highest yields. What was not accounted for was the fact that the PSE had lost much more purge during pre-display storage in vacuum packages, thus the need for a collective analysis of multiple measurements.