Effect of animal age, postmortem chilling rate, and aging time on meat quality attributes of water buffalo and humped cattle bulls

Abstract

Meat quality is of great interest to producers, consumers, and scientists, as it mainly includes tenderness, color, water-holding capacity, and nutritional value of meat (Hopkins & Geesink, 2009). Tenderness is considered the most critical palatability factor that can affect meat quality (Koohmaraie & Geesink, 2006). Researchers found that inadequate tenderness plays a significant role in consumer dissatisfaction while they are willing to pay extra money on guaranteed tender beef (Feldkamp, Schroeder, & Lusk, 2005). The tenderness is primarily influenced by the production and processing factors. The production factors mainly include animal species, breed, gender, age, weight at slaughter, and nutritional management at the farm. On the other hand, processing factors generally involve postharvest-specific techniques like carcass chilling and aging to enhance the tenderness of beef. Among the production factors, animal age at slaughter has a strong impact on tenderness (Lawrence, Whatley, Montgomery, Perino, & Dikeman, 2001). Most of the studies have consistently concluded that the advancement of animal age leads to a decrease in beef tenderness due to the deposition of heat-stable collagen fibers (Xiong et al., 2007).

Effect of Wet Aging on Color Stability, Tenderness, and Sensory Attributes of Longissimus lumborum and Gluteus medius Muscles from Water Buffalo Bulls

“…Following chilling, carcasses were deboned at 10 ± 1 °C, and both-sided Longissimus lumborum (LL) and Gluteus medius (GM) muscles were removed. Every LL and GM was cut into steaks ( n = 9), each steak with 2.5 cm thickness, and tagged for identification [ 7 ]. All LL ( n = 18) steaks and GM steaks ( n = 18) of each carcass were mixed separately for randomization.…”

“…Meat quality is described by many attributes, including its color, tenderness, juiciness, flavor, and palatability. Among all these attributes, tenderness is considered the primary quality characteristic regarding eating satisfaction [ 6 , 7 ]. This is evidenced by consumers’ willingness to pay the extra price for guaranteed tender beef [ 8 ].…”

“…Previous studies have performed the meat aging maximum until 28 days, and it is known that aging improves the tenderness during the first 14 days postmortem of cattle and lamb [ 19 , 20 ]. However, this study used the extended aging time (up to 35 days) because the proteolytic enzymes’ action is slower in buffalo than in cattle [ 7 ].…”

Current Knowledge on River Buffalo Meat: A Critical Analysis

“…Many pre-and post-mortem factors affect meat colour [130]. Higher L* and b* and lower a* were reported for young buffalo [48], which could be explained by the lower total pigment in meat from young compared to old animals [26,114]. The comparison of meat from animals differing in slaughter weight (200 to 350 kg) detected significant differences between colour parameters measured at 1 h, but very similar values measured at 24 h [49].…”

“…However, it is likely that this is not the general situation of retail meat, because the data in the literature mostly refer to animals reared and managed in experimental conditions, which often differ from the usual production systems. The influence of age on pH was investigated, but with controversial results, indicating either higher values in younger animals [116], or in the older ones [48], or an absence of any effect [114]. The large variability in the age of the animals used in the different studies, together with the differences in the age range within studies, might explain the conflicting results.…”