RESULTS
Color
All chicken breasts removed from broilers from the group C 16-42 presented normal color. In turn, one ECC 16-21 sample was classified as DFD, three were normal,and two were ranked as PSE. Also, one ECC 22-42 sample was classified as normal, five as PSE, and none as DFD. In the ECC 16-42 regime, one, four and one broiler were classified as DFD, normal, and PSE, respectively.
Color of broiler breast meat under the ECC 22-42 regime differed significantly from the control group (P = 0.02). Comparable result was obtained for the groups ECC 22-42 and ECC 16-42 (P = 0.03). These dissimilarities indicate that, under heat stress for 1 h a day, broilers at different management stages will develop PSE or DFD breasts. However, there are no published data showing that consumers are able to tell this difference or name one or another characteristic as the object of their preference.
Contrasting with the consumption of these products at home, the processing units that use pale chicken breasts as raw material in the manufacture of mortadella, for instance, are required to resort to additives in order to recover the functional potential of PSE chicken meat [6].
Drip Loss
The exposure of broilers to 1-h cyclic heat stress a day did not affect percent drip loss in breasts
(Table 1).
Correlation between drip loss and color
A significant, negative and midrange linear correlation was observed between the data of drip loss and color of broiler breasts (r = -0.41).