The negative influence of cold shortening on meat texture is well known. Because of that, the determination of the muscle contraction extent represents an important analytical tool for the optimization of the industrial procedures. In this work, two methodologies to evaluate cold shortening were compared. Biceps femoris, Longissimus dorsi and Semimembranosus muscles from 9 cattle carcasses with three different fat thickness grades were paired analyzed by both methodologies. Longissimus dorsi muscle showed the shortest sarcomere length while Semimembranosus m. showed the longest one (p<0.05). Samples with higher fat thickness showed longer sarcomere length (p<0.05). There was no significant difference between the two methodologies studied (p>0.05), which suggests the possibility of using the simpler method for cold shortening evaluation.
beef; tenderness; sarcomere; cold shortening
