Meat produced by Japanese Black cattle and Wagyu

Abstract

Japanese Black Cattle and Wagyu In Japan, Wagyu cattle include four types of Japanese cattle: the Black, Brown, Shorthorn, and Polled breeds. All have played important roles locally and in the history of mixed farming, as well as the synergies that exist between cattle and crops, especially rice. Farmers gradually began replacing the role of cattle as draft animals with farm machinery and industrial fertilizers approximately 50 years ago, and in recent years, Japanese Wagyu cattle have been farmed more specifically for beef production. The famous brand name Wagyu includes not only Japanese Black cattle produced in Japan, but also animals or even crossbred Japanese Black cattle produced in foreign countries such as Australia or the USA. There are numerous studies investigating the meat quality, quantity, and muscle physiology of crossbreed Wagyu (Japanese Black) in foreign countries (

Characteristics and Health Benefit of Highly Marbled Wagyu and Hanwoo Beef

“…Gotoh et al (2011) have compared intramuscular fatty acid composition of longissimus muscle in 26-month-old Japanese Black steers and Holstein steers reared and fattened using a standard fattening system (Table 1). In the longissimus muscle of Japanese Black steers, a higher percentage of unsaturated fatty acid was found than that in Holstein steers (Gotoh et al , 2014). Moreover, Gotoh et al (2011) have also compared the IMF content and fatty acid compositions of 21 major skeletal muscles using the same animals.…”

“…The mean body weight and carcass weight of beef at slaughter (26-30 mon of age) were 725 kg and 470 kg, respectively. High performance marbled beef production has caused Japanese Black cattle to comprise the greatest share of Japan’s Wagyu cattle population (Albrecht et al , 2011; Gotoh et al , 2009; Gotoh et al , 2014). Recently, the IMF percentage of beef from Japanese Black cattle has an average value of greater than 30% (Albrecht et al , 2011; Horii et al , 2009).…”

“…Yang et al (1999b) have reported interesting correlations between SCD enzyme activity and fatty acid composition in bovine adipose tissue. Although the adipogenic mechanism is extremely complicated, several genes have been identified and confirmed as either associated with or responsible for the fatty acid composition in Wagyu cattle (Gotoh et al , 2014). …”

Meat Science Lexicon

“…In Japan, fine, frost-like marbling is preferred and priced higher than coarse marbled beef (Motoyama et al, 2016). This has resulted in researchers developing camera systems to objectively measure marbling texture in Wagyu cattle through the "New Fineness Index", which measures the perimeter of marbling flecks (Gotoh et al, 2014). However, similar to the United States, marbling texture is not mentioned in the Japanese beef grading standards (Polkinghorne and Thompson, 2010).…”

Genetic polymorphism analysis of 5' untranslated region of thyroglobulin gene in Bali cattle (Bos javanicus) from three different regions of Indonesia

“…Intramuscular fat (IMF) or also called as marbling has been studied contributed to the beef palatability or eating quality of beef through its attributes such as flavour, juiciness and tenderness (Okumura et al, 2007;Hudson et al, 2015), even though several studies showed that the association between marbling score and beef palatability attributes was a positively small (Wheeler et al, 1994;Platter et al, 2003). However, marbling score has been used as one of major determinants for beef palatability in international markets especially in Japan, Australia and USA (Watson et al, 2008;Gotoh et al, 2014).…”