BIOCHEMICAL AND COLOR CHARACTERISTICS OF SKINLESS BONELESS PALE CHICKEN BREAST

Extreme paleness of skinless, boneless chicken breasts sampled from the packaging area of a commercial. processing plant was investigated. Six hundred fillets were collected during 10 visits to the same processing plant and were classified as normal (n = 300) and pale (n = 300) according to visual assessment by the principal investigator. Color (spectrocolorimetry) and pH of each fillet were measured within 1 h following collection. Fillets were frozen in liquid nitrogen and pooled samples of pale and normal meat were later analyzed for thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TEARS), percentage moisture, total pigment, myoglobin, and iron concentrations. Color characteristics (L, a, and b values), pH, total pigment, myoglobin, and iron concentrations were all found to be significantly different in pale meat when compared with normal chicken breast. The TEARS values and percentage moisture for the two groups were not different. Analyses of L, a, and b values revealed that the L characteristic was a good color indicator that can be used to distinguish normal from pale samples, with both high sensitivity and high specificity. Moisture uptake in postchilled, pale fillets could not account for the decrease in total pigment concentration and myoglobin content.