Compositional data of 17 Belgian Blue double-muscled bulls with empty body
weight between 276 and 669 kg were analysed. Body composition only changed
slowly and linearly within the investigated live weight range. Water, prote
in, fat and ash in the empty body varied between 65.8 and 72.0%, 18.9 and 2
1.2%, 3.5 and 9.7% and 3.0 and 4.% respectively. The chemical fat content i
n the empty body was remarkably low. The percentage of accreted energy as p
rotein always remained higher than 50% of the total accreted energy, which
is much higher than generally reported in literature. Caloric values for pr
otein and fat were: 22.91 (+/- 0.90) MJ.kg(-1) and 38.74 (+/- 1.53) MJ.kg(-
1) respectively. Carcass protein contained on average (in %) 8.8 Asp, 15.6
Glu, 5.3 Pro, 7.7 Gly, 6.6 Ala, 7.5 Leu, 7.4 Lys and 6.5 Arg, while the pro
tein in the non-carcass parts contained (in %) 8.0 Asp, 12.7 Glu, 8.8 Pro,
15.1 Gly, 8.0 Ala, 6.6 Leu, 5.6 Lys and 7.2 Arg. The protein composition pr
oved to be rather constant for the considered live weight range.