Tenderizing spent fowl meat with calcium chloride. 4. Improved oxidative stability and the effects of additional aging.

The goal of these experiments was to determine the effects of CaCl2 and NaCl injections on spent fowl meat tenderness and oxidative stability. Two hundred spent Leghorn hens were used in this two-part study. In the first experiment, breast fillets from 160 spent Leghorn hens were harvested immediately after death, injected with 0.3 M CaCl2 or H2O, vacuum tumbled, and either cooked immediately after tumbling or aged at 1 C for 23 h prior to cooking. Although the CaCl2 injection reduced shear values without aging, additional tenderization occurred during the aging period. In the second experiment, breast fillets from 40 spent Leghorn hens were harvested immediately after death, injected with 0.3 M CaCl2, 0.6 M NaCl, 0.15 M CaCl2 + 0.3 M NaCl, or H2O, vacuum tumbled, and then aged at 1 C for 23 h before cooking. The three salt injection treatments reduced shear values to a similar extent, but the sarcomeres were significantly longer for the NaCl treatment than the CaCl2 or combination treatments. Panelists preferred the CaCl2 + NaCl fillets over the CaCl2 fillets. Replacing some of the CaCl2 with NaCl maintained the tenderizing effect, and panelist comments indicated that the slight aftertaste of the 0.3 M CaCl2 treatment was reduced. The sodium contribution of the 0.6 M NaCl treatment would also be reduced by the CaCl2 + NaCl treatment.