Electrical stimulation, muscle tension and glycolysis in bovine Sternomandibularis

Lamb tenderness and electrical stimulation of dressed carcasses

“…The stimulation parameters used in the above work were chosen arbitrarily. Chrystall & Devine (1978) confirmed the effectiveness of the above pulse frequency in producing the maximum rate of pH fall in bovine sternomandibularis.…”

“…Chrystall and Devine (1978) state that the small decrease in pH resulting from stimulation at 90 min post mortem is due to an initial fall post-stimulation, but with none of the subsequent increase in the rate of pH fall which occurs with carcasses stimulated before 30 min post mortem. The necessity for stimulation within 30 min of slaughter imposes a restriction on commercial processes hastening rigormortis onset in both lamb and beef.…”

Factors affecting beef palatability — farmgate to chilled carcass

“…First, during stimulation there is a sharp decrease in pH (∆pH about 0.4-0.5 pH units). Second, the rate of pH decline subsequent to stimulation is generally faster (1.5-2.0 fold) than that observed in non-stimulated muscle (Chrystall and Devine 1978). However, there has been some debate over whether the latter effect is real or merely due to differences in muscle temperature (Bendall 1980).…”

“…The magnitude of the ∆pH and the post-stimulation rate of pH decline is contingent on the voltage (Carse 1973;Chrystall and Devine 1978;Bendall 1980), frequency (Chrystall and Devine 1978;Bouton et al 1980), current and wave form (Chrystall and Devine 1978) and duration of stimulation (Chrystall and Devine 1978;Butchers et al 1998;Hwang et al 1999). Moreover, intrinsic muscle properties such as the pre-stimulation pH (Chrystall and Devine 1978) and the fibre morphology (Devine et al 1984) also influence the glycolytic response to electrical stimulation.…”

“…Moreover, intrinsic muscle properties such as the pre-stimulation pH (Chrystall and Devine 1978) and the fibre morphology (Devine et al 1984) also influence the glycolytic response to electrical stimulation. In these studies, larger changes (∆pH and pH decline) were elicited in those muscles with a higher pre-stimulation pH and/or high proportion of glycolytic Type IIb fibres.…”