The eating duality of meat of steers fed grass and/or concentrates

The objective was to determine, relative to animals expressing their full p otential for carcass growth, the impact on meat quality of increasing carca ss growth of grazing steers by supplementing with concentrates or by increa sing grass supply. Sixty-six continental (Limousin and Charolais) crossbred steers (567 kg) were assigned to one of six diets: (1) 18 kg grass dry mat ter (DM); (2) 18 kg grass DM grass and 2.5 kg concentrate; (3) 18 kg grass DM and 2.5 kg concentrate; (4) 6 kg grass DM and 2.5 kg concentrate; (5) 12 kg grass DM and 2.5 kg concentrate; or (6) concentrates daily. Animals wer e slaughtered after an average of 95 days. Samples of the M. longissmus dor si (LD) were collected at the 8-9th rib interface and subjected to sensory analysis and to other assessments of quality following 2, 7, or 14 days agi ng. Carcass weight gain averaged 360, 631, 727, 617, 551 and 809 g/day for treatments 1 to 6, respectively. There was no difference between diets for colour, Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) or any sensory attribute of the LD. WBSF was negatively correlated with (P < 0.05) carcass growth rate (-0. 31) but only a small proportion of the variation in meat quality between an imals could be attributed to diet pre-slaughter or carcass fatness. It is c oncluded that high carcass growth can be achieved on a grass-based diet wit hout a deleterious effect on meat quality. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.