Abstract
This study was carried out to enhance mature camel meat tenderness with calcium chloride injection. Eight Somali male camels were used in this study. Their average weight and age were 500 kg and 5-6 years. The Longissimus dorsi muscles of each carcass were assigned randomly to either a control where no injection applied or 250 mM food-grade calcium chloride (CaCl2) injection at 5% (wt/wt). Values of colour components were not significantly (P > 0.05) affected by the treatments, although, slight increase in redness (a*) appeared in treated groups accompanied by observed decrease in lightness (L*). Water-holding capacity, shear force and myofibril fragmentation index showed significant differences between the treatments. Treated groups showed less shear value and higher myofibril fragmentation index indicating an improvement in tenderness compared to control group. It also was observed that the myofibril fragmentation index was highly (P < 0.01) correlated with drip loss and negatively (P < 0.01) correlated with water-holding capacity and shear force. This study came to a conclusion that using calcium chloride injection for Somali camel meat results in improved meat tenderness and enhanced quality traits.