An explorative study of muscle eligibility and proposals for methods of measuring water holding capacity in guinea pigs.

In this work two methods are proposed with standardized protocols for water holding capacity assessment in species with limited muscle mass, facilitating comparative studies and quality control in emerging meat production systems. The objective of this study was to adapt two methods for water holding capacity assessment specifically for guinea pig meat, and to evaluate the effects of sex, age, and muscle type on expressible moisture and cooking loss. Ninety-six carcasses of Peru breed guinea pigs were dissected, and the muscles were evaluated for expressible moisture and cooking loss using the modified protocols. The results demonstrated that the proposed modified methods for evaluating expressible moisture and cooking loss were suitable for small animals such as rodents and capable of discriminating differences between muscles, age and sex of the guinea pigs. The semimembranosus muscle showed comparable expressible moisture values to longissimus thoracis et lumborum across all animal groups, while semitendinosus demonstrated similar cooking loss values to that representative muscle. These findings enable the preservation of longissimus thoracis et lumborum for additional meat quality analyses in guinea pigs, addressing a critical methodological gap in small animal meat research.