The Relationship between Muscle Fiber Composition and Pork Taste-traits Assessed by Electronic Tongue System

Abstract To investigate relationships of electronic taste-traits with muscle fiber type composition (FTC) and contents of nucleotides, porcine longissimus lumborum (LL), psoas major (PM), and infra spinam (IS) muscles were obtained from eight castrated LYD pigs. FTC and taste-traits in these three porcine muscles were measured by histochemical analysis and electronic tongue system, respectively. IS had significantly higher proportion of type I fibers while LL had significantly higher proportion of type IIB than other muscles (p<0.05). IS had the highest inosine monophosphate (IMP) content while LL had the lowest IMP content (p<0.05). In contrast, LL had significantly higher hypoxanthine content compared to PM and IS (both p<0.05). For taste-traits, IS had significantly higher umami and richness values but lower sourness value than LL and PM (p<0.05). Sourness and astringency values of LL were significantly higher than those of IS (p<0.05). The proportion of type IIB fiber was positively correlated with sourness and astringency but negatively correlated with saltiness. These results suggest that sourness and astringency tastes are increased with increasing proportions of type IIB fibers in porcine muscles due to increase of hypoxanthine content. These results also imply that umami and richness tastes are increased with increasing contents of type I and IIA fibers because of increased IMP content in porcine muscles.