Turkey meat quality traits as affected by gender and type of muscle

Turkey meat is the second most consumed poultry meat worldwide and represents an economic source of high-quality proteins for human consumption. Few studies have been condicted in order to characterize meat quality traits in turkeys and most of them considered only meat obtained from P. major muscle. For this purpose, ten females (101 d-old and 9.9 at slaughter) and ten males (142 d-old and 21.0 kg at slaughter) Big 6 tukeys were selected and ten muscles representing the main cut-up were dissected from each carcass: breast (Pectoralis major and Pectoralis minor), wing (triceps humeralis muscle), thigh (sartorius, semimembranosus, ileotibialis and biceps femoris muscles), drumstick (peroneus longus, flexor perforans et perforatus digiti III, gastrocnemius pars interna muscles). Each muscle was used to assess ultimate pH following the iodoacetate method and colour using a Minolta Chromameter CR-400 with illuminant sources C and reading were expressed using CIE values for lightness (L*), redness (a*) and yellowness (b*). Two-ways ANOVA was performed using a model including gender, muscle type and their interaction. As expected, both gender and type of muscle affected the most important parameters selected for meat quality assessment. As for gender, male turkeys exhibited lower ultimate pH and higher L* values in almost muscles considered in the present study. These differences can be likely exacerbated by the large difference in slaughter age (14 vs. 20 wks-old) adopted under commercial conditions. Otherwise, redness and yellowness were not modified according the gender of birds. Concerning the effect of type of muscle, as expected, significant differences were found in both pH and colour coordinates. Indeed, overall beast and wing muscles showed significantly lower values of ultimate pH, redness and yellowness when compared with thich and drumstick muscles which did not differ from each other. These differences can be ascribed to the different in vivo metabolism of the muscles considered (glycolytic vs. oxidative). Considering the current different use of turkey meats under commercial conditions, these results can be useful to define threshold values useful for establishing quality categories of the meat according gender and and muscle of origin.