9. Obtained values for hardness and cohrsiveness in a TPA analysis of lamb loin samples injected with different amounts of phosphates and subjected to either sous-vide cooking are shown in Table 3. .
Overall, phosphate addition increased the hardness of cooked lamb loin samples, such an effect being more marked in sous vide cooking Despite the effect of myofibrillar and collagen heat denaturation on cooked meat texture, water loss from the muscle tissue upon heating also play a key role in meat toughening, so that the greater the water lost during cooking, the higher the cooked meat toughness However, the hardness parameter in the TPA basically assesses how a meat cube may withstand compression; thus, the more swollen the meat becomes due to the addition of phosphates, the greater the force that is needed to compress it. A similar tendency was shown for SF values of sous vide cooked lamb loins, inwhich swollen samples due to the injection of phosphates showed higher SF values than those injectedwithwater (Table 3).