Consumer assessment of beef strip loin steaks of varying fat levels

Abstract

A consumer study was conducted in Lubbock, Texas, to determine the effects of fat level of beef strip steaks on the palatability traits of tenderness, juiciness, flavor liking, and overall liking, while further investigating the window of acceptability for fat content of beef. Thirty beef strip loins were selected by trained personnel to equally represent USDA Prime, High Choice (upper 1/3 Choice), Low Choice (lower 1/3 Choice), Select, and Standard. Proximate analysis was conducted on all strip loins to determine percentage fat, moisture, protein, and collagen. Three strip loins from each quality grade were selected based on fat percentages from proximate analysis to best represent each USDA quality grade for use in the consumer evaluations. Strip loins were fabricated into 2.5-cm steaks, and further processed into 5 × 5 cm pieces. In addition to the US-sourced product, beef LM pieces from 6 Australian Wagyu steers (Wagyu) and 6 Australian grain finished steers (Australian) were used in the consumer evaluations. Consumers (n = 120) were served 7 samples: a warm-up sample, 1 sample from each USDA quality grade treatment, and either a Wagyu or Australian sample, in a balanced order in accordance with a 6 × 6 Latin square. Consumers rated each steak sample for tenderness, juiciness, flavor, and overall liking and rated each palatability trait as either acceptable or unacceptable. Moreover, consumers rated each sample as unsatisfactory, good everyday quality, better than everyday quality, or premium quality. Tenderness, juiciness, flavor liking, and overall liking increased with increasing fat content (P < 0.05). However, Wagyu and Australian samples did not follow this trend for flavor and overall liking. A decrease in consumer acceptability of each palatability trait was observed as fat level decreased (P < 0.05). Consumer overall liking was correlated (P < 0.05) with consumer tenderness (r = 0.76) and juiciness ratings (r = 0.73), but most highly correlated with flavor liking (r = 0.88). Results of this study indicated that increased fat level in beef strip steaks positively affected tenderness, juiciness, flavor liking, and overall liking of beef strip steaks. Moreover, flavor liking was the most highly correlated palatability trait with overall liking. In US-sourced samples, fat level had a large effect on the flavor liking of beef as determined by consumers.

Inter-laboratory assessment by trained panelists from France and the United Kingdom of beef cooked at two different end-point temperatures

“…These findings are consistent with numerous recently published reports (O'Quinn et al, 2012;328 Hunt et al, 2014;Corbin et al, 2015) and are consistent with their role in meat quality 329 acceptance. It has been reported that the most important attributes that influence acceptability 330 are tenderness and juiciness (Butler, Poste, Mackie & Jones, 1996;Zimoch & Gullett, 1997) …”

“…Recent studies by Corbin et al (2015) and O'Quinn et al (2012) show similar findings to the 345 latter. Except for one data set (the French protocol with beef from young bulls cooked at 346 55°C), normal and abnormal beef flavour were negatively correlated.…”

Honduran and U.S. Consumer Assessment of Beef from Various Production Systems with or Without Marinating

“…Despite similar (P > 0.05) consumer palatability scores and acceptability percentages between TC and SE in our study, differences in palatability between quality grades in U.S. treatments have been previously reported when comparing strip loin tenderness scores (Corbin et al, 2015;O'Quinn et al, 2012;Tedford et al, 2014).…”

Biochemical measurements of beef are a good predictor of untrained consumer sensory scores across muscles

“…Many Studies have shown that increased marbling level, or intramuscular fat (IMF%) was associated with greater tenderness, juiciness, flavour liking and overall liking (Lorenzen et al, 2003;Garmyn et al, 2011;Chriki et al, 2012;O'Quinn et al, 2012). Furthermore Thompson (2004) in cattle and in lamb found a positive relationship between IMF% and the flavour liking and juiciness scores of untrained Australian consumers.…”

“…This may be due to the weaker structural properties of fat than other muscle tissue components (Thompson, 2004). These relationships are supported by O'Quinn et al (2012) who found that as the IMF% in the m. longissimus thoracis increased American untrained consumer scores for tenderness, flavour liking, juiciness and overall liking increased, though this effect was not consistent between the samples of beef derived from Australian and American cattle. This mirrors the findings of Thompson (2004), who also utilised untrained consumer panels and the m. longissimus thoracis.…”