Meat pH before and after injection and after cooking is shown in
Table 2. In our research, the pH after tumbling and after cooking was
significantly affected by phosphate addition (p b 0.001 and p = 0.018
respectively). Thus, samples injected with phosphates showed higher
pH values than those injectedwith distilled water. Such an effect of phosphate
injection was not affected by phosphate level in cooked samples,
since samples injected with either 0.4 or 0.2% phosphate brine showed
no significant differences between them. The main effect of phosphate
addition on pH was most likely due to the fact that both STPP and TSPP
are alkaline salts and their addition to the slightly acidic meat leads to
an increase in pH.