Muscle Energy Metabolism, Growth, and Meat Quality in Beef Cattle

Abstract

World meat production must increase substantially to support current projections in population growth over the next 30 years. However, maximizing product quality remains a focus for many in the meat industry, as incremental increases in product quality often signal potential increases in segment profitability. Moreover, increases in meat quality also address concerns raised by an ever-growing affluent society demanding greater eating satisfaction. Production strategies and valued endpoints differ worldwide, though this makes the global marketing of meat challenging. Moreover, this variation in production schemes makes it difficult for the scientific community to understand precisely those mechanisms controlling beef quality. For example, some cattle are produced in low input, extensive, forage-based systems. In contrast, some producers raise cattle in more intensive operations where feeding programs are strategically designed to maximal growth rates and achieve significant fat deposition. Yet, others produce cattle that perform between these two extremes. Fresh meat quality, somewhat like the variation observed in production strategies, is perceived differently across the globe. Even so, meat quality is largely predicated on those characteristics visible at the retail counter, namely color and perceived texture and firmness. Once purchased, however, the eating experience is a function of flavor and tenderness. In this review, we attempt to identify a few areas where animal growth may impact postmortem energy metabolism and thereby alter meat quality. Understanding how animals grow and how this affects meat quality development is incumbent to all vested in the meat industry.

The Potential Use of Probiotics to Improve Animal Health, Efficiency, and Meat Quality: A Review

“…The increase in demand for animal products due to the growing world population has been an ongoing challenge for the animal production sector worldwide [1]. Tremendous progress has been achieved over the past five decades in this regard, mainly due to improvements in genetic selection, health status, nutrition, and the use of antibiotics and growth promotants [2].…”

Are Marbling and the Prediction of Beef Eating Quality Affected by Different Grading Sites?

“…The proportions of type I and type II A fibers in LT are higher than those in LL, the proportion of type II B fiber in LL is higher than that in LT ( 46 ). However, oxidative fibers (I and IIA) are known to have a decreased rate in the extent of postmortem pH decline and lightness and inherently have an increase in redness due to a higher myoglobin concentration, thus resulting in darker meat when compared to glycolytic muscles (type II B) ( 47 ). In this way, the LT muscle is expected to be darker than the LL muscle.…”

SAP30 Gene Is a Probable Regulator of Muscle Hypertrophy in Chickens

“…The proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts were already associated with important economical traits in broiler chicken, including meat quality ( Nihashi et al, 2019 ). A study measuring the muscle fiber diameters observed a positive correlation and participation of this phenotype in the breast weight and percentage in chickens ( Koomkrong et al, 2015 ), also the fiber size, number, and composition are important traits related with meat quality ( Lefaucheur, 2010 ; Wicks et al, 2019 ).…”