Elsevier

Meat Science

Volume 65, Issue 1, September 2003, Pages 593-598
Meat Science

Fatty acid composition of intramuscular lipids in various muscles of Holstein-Friesian bulls slaughtered at different ages

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0309-1740(02)00252-8Get rights and content

Abstract

Holstein-Friesian bulls were slaughtered at 7, 14 and 19 months of age. Samples were collected from the psoas major, longissimus and semitendinosus muscles. The total lipids (TL) of the samples were extracted and the fatty acid compositions were analysed by gas chromatography. Both the slaughtering age and the type of muscles had significant effects on the intramuscular TL contents and fatty acid compositions. The longissimus muscle had higher intramuscular TL both at 14 and 19 months than at 7 months of age. As the bulls became older the proportion of saturated fatty acids (SFA) and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) increased in the TL of each muscle tested, whereas that of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) decreased. Among the muscle types, the semitendinosus had the lowest, intramuscular TL at each slaughtering age and the psoas major the highest. Except for SFA at 7 months of age, the semitendinosus showed lower levels of SFA and MUFA and higher proportions of PUFA than the other two muscles.

Introduction

The fatty acid composition of dietary fats is of great importance in human nutrition and health. Numerous studies (Sadi et al., 1996, Turek et al., 1996, Zhang et al., 1999) have demonstrated that dietary fatty acids with different degrees of saturation exert different effects on human health. Additionally, the saturation rate of the fatty acids influences the meat flavour (Purchas, O'Brien, & Pendleton, 1979) and the consistency of adipose tissues (Bozzolo, Bouiller, Boisseson, De Chasson, & Grasset, 1990). Increased unsaturation results in greater flavour changes in ruminants, including beef, than in pork (Melton, 1990). Breed, age- and sex-related differences in the fatty acid composition of beef-type cattle have been widely demonstrated (Eichhorn et al., 1986, Heurta-Leidenz et al., 1996, Malau-Aduli et al., 2000, Perry et al., 1998). However, few data are available on Holstein-Friesian cattle, despite the fact that the bulls of this breed of dairy cattle provide a considerable proportion of the beef consumed throughout the word. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the fatty acid composition of muscle lipids in Holstein-Friesian bulls at different ages.

Section snippets

Animals and management

The study used the male offspring of cows at the Holstein-Friesian dairy farm of the Ostffyasszonyfa Agricultural Cooperative, located in the western part of Hungary. Thirty bull calves at an average age of 2 months (98±8.7 kg live weight) were housed in a free-stall barn with an open corral. Ten of these animals were fattened to approximately 7 months of age (live weight±S.D.) (245±22.4 kg), 10 bulls to 14 months (396±13.9 kg) and 10 bulls to 17 months of age (459±21.0 kg). The calves were fed

Results

Carcass composition of the experimental animals is presented in Table 4. As indicated, proportion of the separable lean significantly increased, whereas that of bone significantly decreased by age. Fat content of the calves slaughtered at 14 months of age showed significantly higher values comparing with calves slaughtered at 7 months of age. However, no significant differences were obtained between the fat content in the carcass of bulls slaughtered at 14 or 17 months of ages.

The intramuscular

Discussion

In these experiments the ITL content of muscle samples showed significant changes only in the longissimus dorsi muscle of Holstein-Friesian calves slaughtered at different ages. In cattle, the intramuscular fat is the most important site of fat deposition at slaughter, with about 45% of total carcass fat (Nürnberg, Wegner, & Ender, 1998). Most papers (Huerta-Leidenz et al., 1996) conclude, however, that ITL is late developing relative to internal or subcutaneous fat in the body. This

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