Relationship between fat depots in carcasses of beef bulls and effect on meat colour and tenderness

Four hundred and thirty-three double-muscled and two hundred and two non-do uble-muscled Belgian Blue bulls, with mean cold carcass weights of 470 +/- 27 and 414 +/- 33 kg, respectively, were studied to investigate the relatio nships between the SEUROP fat grade, the anatomical fat content in the carc ass (adipose tissue) and the chemical fat content in the Longissimus thorac is. The relationships between the shear force value and the lightness of th e meat and fat characteristics were also studied. A moderate correlation wa s found between the fat characteristics within each data set with correlati on coefficients, ranging from 0.4 to 0.6. The correlation coefficients incr eased to 0.70-0.85 when the data sets were pooled. Fat characteristics of t he carcass and meat showed only limited predictive power (R-2 < 0.15) for m eat tenderness and colour. This study also shows that double-muscled animal s belong to a sub-population of the Belgian Blue breed rather than deviants from the non-double-muscled animal. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rig hts reserved.