TENDERNESS AND ITS VARIATION OF BROILER BREAST MEAT HARVESTED FROM ELECTRICALLY STIMULATED CARCASSES

Broiler carcasses were electrically stimulated and the tenderness and its variation of the broiler breast meat were analyzed, The tenderness was measured by performing shear tests on an Instron machine. The mea n shear values decreased as the voltage level increased from 0 to 20, 40, and 120 V, but there was no significant difference between the 40- V and 120-V treatments. The variation in shear values due to random ef fects from bird to bird, from side to side, and from sample to sample accounted for 20.5, 24.9, and 20.0% of the total variability, respecti vely. The variation due to replication as well as the replication by v oltage interaction was negligible. The fixed factor effect associated with voltage levels accounted for 34.5% of the total variability in th e shear values.