<b>Meat quality of the longissimus dorsi muscle of Aberdeen Angus steers of small and medium frame score, slaughtered at the same carcass finishing stage</b> - doi: 10.4025/actascianimsci.v33i2.10746

Abstract

The objective of this work was to assess the influence of small and medium frame scores in the meat composition of the longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle of Abredeen Angus steers. We used LD sections from eight small-framed steers and ten medium-framed steers, confined for 158 days, with mean slaughter age of 457 days and 429 kg live weight. The feed was composed of sorghum silage and concentrate in a 60:40 ratio for the first 63 days, and 50:50 thereafter until slaughter. Frame was calculated using the formula: F=-11.548 + (0.4878 x h) - (0.0289 x ID) + (0.0000146 x (ID)^²) + (0.0000759 x h x ID); h = height in inches and ID = age in days. The meat from LD showed medium marbling (10.11 points; p = 0.7034), red color (4.33 points; p = 0.3724), texture with a tendency to very thin (4.61 points; p = 0.3075) and the shear force of 2.72 kg cm^-² (p = 0.4004). The meat showed 72.27% (p = 0.4355) for moisture, 19.34% (p = 0.4150) crude protein, 3.96% (p = 0.9071) lipids, 4.43% (p = 0.9842) minerals, and 0.25 mg of cholesterol 100 g^-1 of meat (p = 0.2375). Frame size did not influence the concentrations of palmitic acid (p = 0.079), stearic acid (p = 0.2455), oleic acid (p = 0.3046), linoleic acid (p = 0.9456), but with change in the participation of myristic acid (ŷ = 1.85 + 0.12F; p = 0.043). The study of frame score in the composition of meat is important to identify the best nutraceutical features.