Abstract: To predict the tenderness of cooked meat, the concentrations of certain trace elements such as copper, cobalt, iron, zinc, calcium, selenium and silicon and sometimes cadmium and lead in uncooked meat muscle are measured in samples taken from the carcass of the animals and samples from the same muscle are cooked and rated by a sensory taste panel (STR scores). A formula is obtained by multiple linear regression of the data using the concentrations of trace elements as the independent variables and STR as the dependent variable. To grade a carcass the concentrations of measured trace elements are entered into the formula and a predicted STR is calculated. The ratio of the concentration of iron to zinc provides an especially suitable independent variable because of its high correlation with tenderness and the ease of measuring zinc and iron accurately.