Day 066 - 14 Dec 94 - Page 31
1 the muscle of the animal?
2 A. That is correct. It will in both -- in the species in
3 both chicken or beef it will show.
4
5 Q. And pigs?
6 A. And pigs, yes.
7
8 Q. How does it show?
9 A. It shows -- in pigs it shows, there is a condition that
10 is called Pale Self-exudative or PSE for short, where the
11 meat is very -- it becomes very whitish, very pale, and it
12 develops a substance on the top, the exudative on the top,
13 and it becomes very shiny.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is becomes sort of slimy, does it?
16 A. Yes, that is what it does, slimy. The word is called
17 the exudative.
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: That is attributable to stress, is it?
20 A. Yes, it is shown.
21
22 Q. Can you tell us what is the physiological or biochemical
23 explanation of that change?
24 A. Yes, I can. In muscles animals have -- they store
25 energy as a fat or carbohydrates glycogen. During that --
26 when the animal, to produce energy, so there is a
27 degradation normally from carbohydrates all the way to what
28 is called ATP or usable energy. During the process, if
29 stress is applied to an animal, one of the bi-products of
30 that biochemical change converting the energy, the store
31 energy into usable energy, one of the bi-products is lactic
32 acid. That lactic acid will reduce the pH of the meat.
33
34 The pH of the meat has a direct effect on the ability of
35 the meat to hold water. That is what you see where the
36 meat does not hold that water, because the animal has been
37 stressed and, as a result, there has been a higher
38 production of lactic acid which resulted in a lower pH of
39 the meat. And you see that condition on the meat, and will
40 affect also some of their -- that lower pH will affect in
41 the nature of some of the proteins and enzymes in the
42 muscles.
43
44 Q. What are the sorts of conditions or circumstances which,
45 leaving aside physical injury, produce stress in animals?
46 A. Any sign of stress could be nutrition, if the animal do
47 not have water; could be noise; could be the handling; it
48 could be that the animal is not familiar with the
49 environment; it could be transportation -- basically, it
50 could be anything.
51
52 Q. Take your example of the pig meat, if the pork is PSE, what
53 happens to it as part of the production process?
54 A. The products that are result, and especially in our
55 case, will not have the right texture, will definitely not
56 have the right colour, and will not have the right flavour
57 as well.
58
59 Q. So is it, nonetheless, accepted and bunged in with the
60 product just the same or not?
