Adrenaline and Meat Quality

[Jeb Stuart]

@Jeb Stuart - you may have self-assigned my comments, but they were not meant for you, and did not quote or reference you or your statements.

My statement, brief as it was, is meant to describe the difference in a relatively instantaneous adrenal release and the long cycle metabolic pathway in which lactic acid is produced.

Several times in this thread, references and comparisons are drawn between wild game and domestic livestock, with a terribly blurred line between sustained animal stress in an abattoir and instantaneous alert of a game animal, or a short duration “death sprint”. It’s silly to pretend these are the same, and also silly to pretend there is no adrenal response in an animal which is injured to be killed. Even in domestic livestock, a pneumatic bolt gun to the forehead might cease conscious motor control near-instantly, but it’s a far cry from instantly ceasing adrenal response.

What an animal ate during life, it’s general health condition at death, and how the meat is treated following death have infinitely greater influence on meat quality and flavor than how far a dead-on-its-feet deer could run before succumbing.

I got it, and was just going forward with the effects of Lactic Acid as mentioned in a post before yours. Makes for a good debate or discussion.
Thanks

 

[wankerjake]

Maybe not, but according to this from one of the posted links, they are directly related when it comes to meat and taste:


The key ingredient here is lactic acid: in an unstressed animal, after death, muscle glycogen is converted into lactic acid, which helps keep meat tender, pink, and flavorful. Adrenaline released by stress before slaughter uses up glycogen, which means there’s not enough lactic acid produced postmortem. This affects different kind of meat in different ways, but in general it’ll be tough, tasteless, and high in pH, and will go bad quicker than unstressed meat. (Lactic acid helps slow the growth of spoilage bacteria.)

Lactic acidosis builds up when they use their muscles. If lactic acid is good for the meat, then by that logic the meat would taste better when they die hard, no?

Also, adrenaline does not “use up glycogen.” That is badly worded at best. The muscle uses glycogen as fuel when it’s being exerted.

 

[wankerjake]

I would say lactic acid buildup would be a better theory about making the meat taste bad, but as I’ve stated, I don’t think their exertion before death particularly matters, at least with elk and deer

The antelope angle is interesting and I can’t anecdotally rule it out having not hunted them. Although it can’t really be adrenaline because that’s the constant; same molecule across species