Preslaughter handling of pigs and the effect on heart rate, meat quality, including tenderness, and sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ transport

The principal hypothesis, that a disturbed Ca2+ transport will affect the tenderness by activating the calpain system, could not be verified. Tenderness did not differ between experimental groups using 24 h post-mortem samples, neither was there a difference in tenderness after storing the meat samples for 6 days.