Consumers purchase pork, beef, or chicken from retail stores, and
the meats purchased may be eaten or not. The uneaten meat might be
repacked and stored in a refrigerator or a freezer. In general, purge
loss (meat juice) from meat is released onto the packaging bag
or paper. When the consumer repacks the meat, purge loss can be
removed or not. Studies concerning drip or purge loss have been con-
fined to identifying exudation amount or its relationship with other meat qualities. However, the influence of
meat exudates on meat quality during cold storage has not been
identified. Therefore, we hypothesized that the presence of exudates
affects meat quality such as meat color, muscle pH, tenderness, lipid
oxidation, and microbial growth. The interaction between the presence
of exudates and freeze-thawing was also investigated, because freezing
is a representative method for preserving muscle foods.