In recent decades, the poultry industry has been confronted with the frequent occurrence of meat of abnormal quality related to stress, genetics, pre-slaughter technology and chicken growth. The most common abnormal quality is pale, soft and exudative (PSE) muscle quality, which is influenced by both environmental factors (temperature, season, pre-slaughter stress) and genetic factors (chicken provenance). Due to the increased demand for poultry meat, producers are now looking for ways to improve the functional properties of PSE meat through additives such as starch, soy isolate, collagen, and carrageenan, as well as physical and chemical processes such as curing, high pressure treatment and glycosylation. In chicken genotypes characterized by a very rapid increase in muscle mass and thus high yields, irregularities occur mainly on the superficial part of the pectoralis major muscles and are described in the literature as white striped (WS) breasts, tough and chewy wood-like breast (WB) and spaghetti-like meat (SM). Meat associated with abnormalities in animal growth is safe for human consumption because it is not associated with biological or chemical hazards. The histological changes resulting from the above myopathies are similar to those that can be caused by various diseases (muscular dystrophy, nutritional myopathy, deep thoracic myopathy and toxic myopathy), the cause of these modern myopathies is usually different. The severity of these myopathies can, of course, have a negative impact on the quality and technological properties of raw and processed meat, as well as on consumer acceptance, which undoubtedly causes economic damage to the poultry industry.
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