Relative contributions of animal and muscle effects to variation in beef lean color stability1,2

Abstract

Relationships between color variables measured in LL steaks and those measured in steaks from other muscles differed across days of display with the strongest relationships being observed earlier in the display period for labile muscles and later in stable muscles. Lightness of LL steaks was correlated with lightness of all of other muscles evaluated, regardless of display day (r = 0.27 to 0.79). For a*, hue angle, chroma, and ∆E values, the strongest relationships between LL values and those of other muscles were detected between d 9 LL values and those of other muscles on d 3, 6, or 9, depending on the relative stability of the muscle. Correlation coefficients between d 9 a*, hue angle, chroma, and ∆E values in LL and those of other muscles were 0.50, 0.65, 0.28, and 0.43 (P < 0.05) or greater, respectively, for the muscles included in the study. Myoglobin content of SM, BF, GM, and TB was highly correlated with that of LL (r = 0.83, 0.82, 0.72, and 0.67, respectively; P < 0.05). Muscle pH of LL was correlated with pH of SM and GM (r = 0.44 and 0.53; P < 0.05), but not (P > 0.05) pH of BF or TB. Muscle effects generally explained more variation in a*, b*, hue angle, chroma, and ∆E than animal effects. However, the relative importance of animal effects increased as display continued. These data indicate that animal effects were consistent across muscles, though muscle effects had greater contribution to color stability variation. Furthermore, strong relationships between LL color stability and the stability of other muscles indicate that strategies developed to manage animal variation in LL color stability would beneficially affect the entire carcass.

Sampling and aging effects on beef longissimus color stability measurements1

“…During later days of display, the correlation for these and all other traits increased as the variation in these traits increased. This is consistent with the changes in correlation of color attributes of various beef muscles to LM color attributes during display (King et al, 2011b). The high degree of correlation between color attributes of steaks aged for 14 d before being placed in simulated retail display and those removed from the carcass after grading indicates that removing steaks from the carcass after grading and placing them immediately into simulated retail display will provide color stability evaluations that are indicative of the color stability of aged beef.…”

Meat Color Stability of Ovine Muscles Is Related to Glycolytic Dehydrogenase Activities

“…Efforts to understand the mechanism have revealed that metmyoglobin reductase activity (MRA), oxygen consumption rate, NADH, pH of muscles are the contributors, of which the differences in MRA and NADH concentrations in muscles are likely the most important factors (Kim et al., , Ledward, ; Ramanathan, Mancini, & Konda, ), but the origination of the different NADH content has not been fully explained. Kim, Shackelford, and Wheeler () and Kim et al. (, ) reported that inconsistent LDH‐B activity in muscles might be the cause for different meat color stability as beef steaks from LL muscle had the highest color stability and LDH‐B activity.…”

“…Previous studies have shown that different beef (Joseph, Suman, Rentfrow, Li, & Beach, 2012;King, Shackelford, and Wheeler, 2011;Suman, Hunt, Nair, & Rentfrow, 2014) and lamb (Gao et al, 2013) muscles from the same carcass possess inconsistent meat color stability (Neethling, Suman, Sigge, Hoffman, & Hunt, 2017). Efforts to understand the mechanism have revealed that metmyoglobin reductase activity (MRA), oxygen consumption rate, NADH, pH of muscles are the contributors, of which the differences in MRA and NADH concentrations in muscles are likely the most important factors (Kim et al, 2009a, 2009bLedward, 1985Ramanathan, Mancini, & Konda, 2009), but the origination of the different NADH content has not been fully explained.…”

Effect of Aging and Freezing Conditions on Meat Quality and Storage Stability of 1⁺⁺ Grade Hanwoo Steer Beef: Implications for Shelf Life

“…In postmortem oxidative muscle, mitochondrial metabolism surpasses the myoglobin’s ability to bind oxygen, leading to accelerated metmyoglobin formation and surface discoloration (King et al , 2010). The myoglobin content (Hwang et al , 2010; King et al , 2011) and mitochondrial concentration are greater in oxidative muscles, such as the tenderloin (PM), than in glycolytic muscles such as the striploin (LL). PM contains a greater proportion of fiber type I than II (Hwang et al , 2010), which is positively correlated with myoglobin content.…”