Since the predominant portion of the edible flesh of animal carcasses consists of muscular tissue, meat can be conveniently regarded as the post mortem aspect of muscles.
Striated muscles are categorized as either cardiac or skeletal. Cardiac muscles are confined to the heart and have the continuous responsibility of distributing and collecting blood throughout the body.
The striated skeletal muscles attached to the backbone are involved in voluntary movements and facilitate the locomotion and posture. Skeletal muscles exhibit a wide diversity of shapes, sizes, anatomical locations, and physiological functions.
They are characterized by a composite appearance because in addition to muscle fibers, they contain connective, adipose, vascular, and nervous tissues. The principal attributes of eating quality in meat, for which consumers value the commodity, viz. colour, texture (including tenderness and juiciness) and flavour, thus depend upon the structure and chemistry of muscle.
A skeletal muscle consists of approximately 90% muscle fibers and 10% of connective and fat tissues.
A muscle is usually completely enclosed by a thick sheath of connective tissue, the epimysium and is divided into bundles of fibers by a connective tissue network, the perimysium. The individual muscle fibers are bounded by a plasma membrane itself surrounded by a thin connective tissue network, the endomysium.
Skeletal muscles play a major role in locomotion and posture control as well as in protecting vital organs. On average, the meat animal carcass contains about 100 bilaterally symmetrical pairs of individually structured muscles. There are large ones and small ones, depending on function and location. They have different shapes, colors, and concentrations of tendons.
Muscle tissue in meat
