New Developments on the Role of Intramuscular Connective Tissue in Meat Toughness

Intramuscular connective tissue (IMCT) forms a series of continuous networks integrating muscle fibers and fascicles into a whole organ. The contributions of IMCT to cooked meat toughness have long been recognized. This review concentrates on ( a ) the potential to manipulate IMCT in the growing animal, ( b ) postmortem effects on structure and properties of IMCT, and ( c ) developments in techniques to quantify IMCT in meat. A new hypothesis can explain why IMCT is enzymatically degraded in postmortem aging; however, after cooking, no differences are seen in the IMCT contribution to toughness. This hypothesis proposes that heat-insoluble collagen occurs in a weak pool and a strong pool, where the weak pool is most easily degraded by both proteolysis and heat. Far from being a constant background feature, the IMCT contribution to cooked meat toughness can be varied and deserves fresh research on how to achieve this.