A Data Warehouse of Muscle Characteristics and Beef Quality in France and A Demonstration of Potential Applications

Abstract

The BIF-Beef (Beef Integrated and Functional Biology) database contains animal, carcass, muscle and meat data (331,745 entries) collected from 43 experiments over the last 20 years and a great number of variables (621) characterising muscles (fat and collagen contents, cross-section and types of fibres, metabolic activity), making it a relevant tool to relate muscle characteristics to beef quality. Wide variation was observed in all described traits according to muscle type, sex and breed. The BIF-Beef database was mainly composed of data from young bulls of latematuring beef breeds, which is why live weight and carcass weights of the animals were greater, and beef was leaner and lighter than results from other existing databases. Average cross-sectional area of fibres was greater in Semitendinosus than in Longissimus thoracis muscle and, for Longissimus, greater in steers than in young bulls. Intramuscular fat content was in descending order: Charolais > Limousin > Blond d'Aquitaine and females > steers > young bulls. Semitendinosus muscle was less oxidative and contained more collagen than Longissimus muscle. Collagen content in Longissimus was higher in Charolais than in Blond d'Aquitaine and Limousin young bulls. Within the Charolais breed, collagen content in Longissimus was higher in young bulls and steers than in females. Longissimus samples from young bulls were less tender than from females. Based on the above results, this database is a prerequisite for meta-analysis of relationships between muscle characteristics and beef quality in the European context. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License (CC BY-NC 3.0).

A Survey on Feedlot Performance of Purebred and Crossbred European Young Bulls and Heifers Managed Under Intensive Conditions in Veneto, Northeast Italy

“…It is well known that CH bullocks are able to utilize well the TMR based on corn silage, because of their intake capability (Rioni Volpato et al, 1979;Clarke et al, 2009). In the present study the French white beef breed confirmed its wellknown growth potential (Hickey et al, 2007;Alberti et al, 2008;Clarke et al, 2009), and average slaughter BW observed in these specialized fattening units was close to that reported by Chriki et al (2013) for CH in BIFbeef data base. Moreover, CH young bulls are appreciated for their feed efficiency (Williams et al, 1995;Renand et al, 1996;Pfuhl et al, 2007).…”

Histological Characteristics, Fatty Acid Composition of Lipid Fractions, and Cholesterol Content of Semimembranosus and Triceps Brachii Muscles in Maremmana and Limousine Bovine Breeds

“…On the whole, the histological properties of muscle fibers are mainly related to the animals’ age and, in particular, younger animals show smaller muscle fibers than the older animals ( 14 ). In this experiment, animals were slaughtered at the same age, thus the histological differences could be attributed to the somatic precocity of the animals.…”

The Myth of Cultured Meat: A Review

“…In addition, it is difficult to imagine that laboratory meat producers will be in a position in the near future to offer consumers a wide range of meats reflecting the diversity of animal muscles or cuts. Indeed, the sensory quality (i.e., flavor) of meat differs across species (pork, poultry, ovines, bovines, etc), and within a species, between breeds, genders, animal types (i.e., young bulls, steers, heifers, and cows in the case of bovines), farming conditions (depending for instance on breeding location), and mainly between muscles with a different anatomic location (22). So, many complex processes still need to be controlled to make in vitro meat more attractive to consumers as it is more or less the case for any other new food product.…”