Examining Committee
Dr. Donald Mercer, Chair
Dr. Shai Barbut, Advisor
Dr. Leonardo Susta, Co-Advisor
Dr. Ira Mandell, Department Member

TITLE: MYOPATHIES IN FILLETS FROM FAST GROWING CANADIAN CHICKEN: DETECTION, TEXTURE, AND MITIGATION USING FOOD ADDITIVES

ABSTRACT: The combined effect of different severity of Wooden Breast (WB), White Striping (WS), and Spaghetti Meat (SM) on quality parameters and the ability of food additives (e.g., alginate, dairy proteins) to improve textural deficiencies in breast fillets with SM were studied. Parameters tested included drip loss, pH, colorimetry, compression force, cooking loss, and shear force peak count. The severity of myopathies was rated 0, 1 and 2. Overall, WS had little effect on quality, whereas SM showed the highest effect on breast fillets’ quality. Using alginate as a binder revealed that a salttolerant two-component system ("B") performed better than the single component alginate system (“A”). A dairy protein additives study include whole-milk powder, whey protein concentrate, whey protein isolate, and sodium caseinate revealed that dairy proteins improved water holding capacity, hardness and chewiness. Adding whey protein to SM resulted in texture profile similar to control samples (no SM), while caseinate and whole-milk showed the higher value than the control.