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Twenty, three-month old Poll Hereford steers were obtained from the Kirby Research Station, University of New England, Armidale with the aim of investigating differences in the yield of saleable meat and its eating quality associated with differences in conformation (shape) of the animals when slaughtered at 12 months of age. All animals were fed an 18 per cent protein concentrate and lucerne hay for 14 days post-weaning to allow for any adverse check in growth caused by weaning. Following this the animals were allocated to one of four treatment groups by a process of stratified randomization on the animal's weight at 60 days of age. ... It has been claimed that 'superior' conformation indicated 'superior' eating quality, however in the present experiment mean taste panel scores indicated that all muscles samples were within an acceptable range. Taste panel assessment of 'M. longissimus' tenderness reached significance between treatments and there was an overall difference between the four treatments of one taste panel score. The proportion of total connective tissue in the muscle sample was not significantly correlated with taste panel tenderness or Warner-Bratzler shear force. ... As the rate of cooling of the carcase has been associated with cold shortening and thus increased toughness of meat it would have been expected in this experiment that leaner and lighter carcases would have been tougher, however this was not the case. (It was not possible to monitor the rate of carcase cooling in the current work because of the distant location of the abattoir concerned.) Thus it would appear that provided the meat from Groups 1 and 2 was aesthetically pleasing to the consumer he would not be able to detect significant differences in eating quality between animals of different conformation at the same age. |
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