them being muscle fibres, and so they're the strings that make up your muscle, it's the

primary thing that you're eating and they contract to enable movement.

The second type of protein is elastin, and elastin is either a tendon or

a ligament and it's often referred to in the cooking world as either gristle or silver skin.

Now both of those types of protein, it doesn't matter how much you cook them,

you're not going to make them more or less tender, if anything, by applying heat, all

you're going to do is dehydrate the muscle fibres themselves.

The third type of protein is collagen. Now collagen is a type of glue that binds

together these muscle fibres so the more the muscles fibres are working, the more collagen will

be present, so the less the muscle works, the less collagen is present.

Collagen is the only one of the three proteins that you can melt away by applying

heat units.

So when we look at the anatomy of an animal, depending on what the function

of those muscles are, that will dictate our cooking method.

So with the muscles that are part of the locomotive group, those muscles

tend to be doing a lot more work therefore they tend to be higher in collagen and require

a lower temperature of heat for a prolonged period of time in order to melt away all that collagen.

Whereas muscles that are part of the supportive regions of the animal, those

muscles do not require as much exposure to heat so they can be cooked faster, with a

higher temperature.

The ultimate goal when selecting the meat to become tender is that you're able

to melt away the collagen, while not overcooking your muscle fibres.