Effect of cooking loss,tenderness and water distribution of Tan sheep at different salt addition treatment

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of different salt addition treatment on the cooking loss,tenderness and water distribution of Tan sheep. Cooking loss,shear stress and T_2 relaxation properties of water molecules by low-field NMR technology were assayed in the different treatment. The result showed that the cooking loss and shear stress were significantly decreased(p<0.05) with the increase of salt content. However,the difference was not significant(p>0.05) when the salt content was more than 2.5%. LFNMR detected four distinct water group:weakly bound water,strongly bound water,immobilized water and free water. With the increase of salt content,the relaxation time shortened,immobilized water increased and free water reduced. The brightness of the image increased with the increase of the salt addition through the NMR results. The correlation analysis showed that the cooking loss was significantly(p<0.05) positive correlated with T_(23) and T_(24),and the shear stress was positively(p<0.05) correlated with the ratio of T_(23) and T_(24),and negatively(p<0.05) correlated with the ratio of T_(23). The results suggested that the water distribution of Tan sheep had a significant change with the different treatments of salt addition.