Cattle Fat Marbling

Fat and marbling in particular has a beneficial effect on the juiciness and flavour of beef as it aids the entrapment of moisture in the meat and melts through it during the cooking process.

Cattle fat marbling.

Marbling can also be influenced by time on feed. The same principles that apply to building lean muscle and burning fat at the gym apply to animals and marbling. Cattle that are raised on grain will have more marbling than grass fed beef this is fairly intuitive since you can imagine how difficult it would be to get fat by eating grass. The age of cattle is important.

Increased marbling is associated with improved eating quality through juiciness and flavour. Tim and sarah haws of autumn s harvest raise murray grey cattle specifically because they marble well on a pure grass diet as does elmer lapp with murray grey and devon cattle at burkes garden farm. As the cattle make fat the feed efficiency goes down and for consumers we trim off all the excess fat. But in reality it was always the invisible microscopic fat cells hidden within the muscle fibers and not the visible fat streaks that gave beef its tenderness.

These include subcutaneous fat for example rib and rump fat intra muscular fat marbling and inter muscular fat which is positioned between muscles. At the age constant end point the bos indicus crosses had intermediate fat thickness but the lowest marbling scores. This marbling forms at the same time as the microscopic fat cells are filled with fat during the finishing stage of cattle s lives. But if marbling is what consumers want we can increase marbling at different times in the.

But if marbling is what consumers want we can increase marbling at different times in the feeding cycle without making the cattle fatter and that would be a huge benefit for the beef industry marbling vs. Marbling is fat so it is largely determined by the diet of the animal and to a certain degree the breed of cattle. The highest marbling scores at age and weight constant end points but the pinzgauer crosses had the highest marbling score at a fat constant end point. There are three main types of fat depots in beef cattle carcases.

Marbling can be influenced by selective breeding. Cattle raised on grain often marble more easily than those who eat only grass but not every feed is the same and not every breed is the same. Cattle breeds such as angus herefords murray grey shorthorns and wagyu also british white cattle and dairy breeds such as the jersey holstein friesian and braunvieh have higher marbling scores on average versus other cattle such as simmentals charolais or chianina. Ha crosses were the fattest at the average age of 445 d.