PSE meat

Under PSE meat is meant slaughtered pork, which is pale ( Pale ), soft (soft ) and aqueous ( exudative ). It is indeed a defect, but the meat is from a health perspective yet fully inedible.

Physiological causes

In most cases the PSE meat occurs at intersection of animals in which the sire of the Pietrain breed is a carrier of a specific gene. The crossing animals have a much higher meat -forming ability than the original lines, due to heterosis effects. For stress (eg transport to the slaughterhouse ) results in a malignant hyperthermia, so that the back muscles are exposed to a temperature above 42 ° C. Among other things it is concluded by the tendency to weak heart of the pig, which can not be lowered, the elevated temperature in the affected tissue. This causes denaturation of the muscle before the actual death. Back to both sides of the swelling in the process. The name for this effect is called " banana back ". Whether the sires are carriers of this particular gene can be detected by the so-called halothane test. By this simple procedure, in which the carrier animals are sorted out, this meat is hard to find in the trade today.

Substituting these crossbreds before slaughter or during the slaughter process stress out ( slaughter without respite, for example ), this leads to an activation of the metabolism associated with increased production of lactic acid. After slaughter, these lactic acid can not be transported through the bloodstream from the muscles and acidifies the local tissue. In addition, there is a strong activation of the adenosine triphosphatase, which increases muscle activity of the dead animal and accelerates ATP degrades. By these results, the pH drops by lactic acid within a short time at values ​​below 5.8. It comes to a partial denaturation of muscle proteins.

The fact that today's meat so high a drip and has Bratsaftverlust, but has basically nothing to do with the so-called PSE meat.

Characteristics of PSE meat

Due to the partial denaturation of muscle protein decreases the water-binding capacity of the meat. It can take a lot of water loss during heating, which leads to increased toughness or dryness. Accordingly, PSE meat is, for example, not for frying. The pale color is also caused by the through denaturation of proteins, changes in light refraction. The increased wateriness or by increasing the free water Pökelbereitschaft increases, ie the diffusion of salts is faster than regular meat. The taste is often described as watery or empty. Due to the poor water retention and thus usually moist meat surfaces, the durability of PSE meat is reduced. Due to the focused breeding is PSE meat very low in fat.