I went to the grocery store today to get a few needed items before the snow tomorrow. Yep – I said "snow." Living in N.Y. is definitely a culture change from Texas, especially when it comes to the weather.

While at the grocery store (looking at chicken breast meat and turkey cutlets of course!), a random stranger recognized my Texas Aggies shirt and started talking to me. After my shock and mouth- open-without-words episode (no one recognizes maroon and white up here), I started talking about working in the poultry industry and my fun career. If anyone reading this knows me, they know I went straight into education mode and started talking about poultry meat quality, and in this case, the topic was color. Here is my longer version on my discussion I thought I would share with y’all.

Color is an important meat quality attribute and one that can affect purchasing power of the consumer. Poor or unacceptable color or variation of color within a package sometimes can make consumers think something is wrong with that meat. Often, the package with high variation of color gets left behind and is not ever purchased.

Color of breast meat is affected by several factors including myoglobin concentration, oxidation state of the iron within the myoglobin, and muscle pH. Of all these factors, muscle pH is the most important one that influences the color of broiler breast meat. In general, breast meat has low myoglobin concentration, chicken breast meat is even lower than turkey breast meat. Muscle pH contributes a great deal to light reflectance which determines how pale the meat will appear.

Proteins change shape (a process we call denaturation) after the animal is slaughtered, specifically the sarcoplasmic proteins (the ones responsible for cell function). This denaturation can cause increased scattering of light in the muscle resulting in lighter (or paler) meat. Shrinkage of muscle fibers at lower muscle pH levels causes greater scattering of light at the myofibril surface. The transmittance of individual muscle fibers is decreased at low pH resulting in less light absorption and paler meat. Furthermore, myofibrils are birefringent, or have two refractive indices, which causes light to take two different paths as it travels through the myofibrils. Muscle pH strongly affects the difference between the two paths with increased light scattering at low pH levels.

Color is also related to water binding capacity of the meat. In lighter breast meat, the pH is generally lower; therefore, water binding is low because more water is contained in the extracellular space rather than intracellular space. With more water in the extracellular space, light will be reflected rather than absorbed. In poultry, muscle pH is highly correlated with L* value, a measurement of lightness. In the case of darker breast meat, meat color is darker due to the higher pH. The high pH causes the meat to bind more water, more light is absorbed rather than reflected resulting in a darker color.

There are several techniques used to measure color of breast meat. Colorimeters and spectrophotometers are often used. Spectrophotometers are more expensive than colorimeters, but are more versatile. Spectrophotometers are used for complex color analysis because spectral reflectance at various wavelengths can be measured. Colorimeters are lower in price, typically smaller in size and are more mobile. Colorimeters can measure tristimulus color values, a system that is used in measuring meat color. Color standards can also be used in conjunction with human perception. However, no color standards have been devised for poultry meat. They are often used for pork and beef.

So, looking at the packages in front of us, we discussed the color differences of the breast meat and then went down to the pork cases and did the same thing. There were some minor differences (variations) within all of the packages so it was a great learning moment. Instead of leaving the packages, the consumer picked one up an said they were going home to teach their family about breast meat color.

That was the most successful interaction with a random stranger/consumer in a long time. Take the time to talk to friends and family — and random strangers, too (especially those asking questions) — and share knowledge about our industry. It helps and it does work.

Random stranger

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