Effects of strain and selection for growth on tenderness in sheep and beef meats.

INTRODUCTION Tenderness is an important attribute of meat which has a significant impact on consumer acceptability of the product. Considerable variation in meat tenderness exists even under modem production and handling systems (Morgan et al., 1991). Final tenderness of meat is determined by the rate and extent ofpost mortem proteolysis of key myofibrillar proteins. Also results of a number of experiments have indicated that the calpain proteolytic system plays a major role in the tenderization of meat post mortem (Koohmaraie, 1988, 1992a,b).