Effects of grass feeding systems on ruminant meat colour and flavour. A review

Animal Research, Jul 2018

Alessandro Priolo, Didier Micol, Jacques Agabriel

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Effects of grass feeding systems on ruminant meat colour and flavour. A review

Anim. Res. Effects of grass feeding systems on ruminant meat colour and flavour. A review Alessandro PRIOLO 0 Didier MICOL 0 Jacques AGABRIEL 0 0 Unité de Recherches sur les Herbivores, INRA Clermont-Ferrand-Theix , 63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle , France - Grass feeding has been reported to affect several meat quality characteristics, in particular colour and flavour. In this paper we have reviewed some differences in meat colour and flavour between ruminants fed concentrates and animals allowed to graze pasture. The possible factors influencing the differences have been also examined. We have examined a total of 35 experiments which report the effect of pasture vs concentrate finishing systems on beef meat colour. Meat from cattle raised on pasture is reported to be darker than meat from animals raised on concentrates if measured by objective (P < 0.001) as well as subjective (P < 0.05) methods. Several factors, not a specific one are responsible for this difference, variations in ultimate-pH and in intramuscular fat content between animals finished at pasture and those finished on concentrates, seem to play a major role. Diet also affects meat flavour in both sheep and cattle but the components involved seem to be different. In sheep pastoral flavour is mostly determined by the branched-chain fatty acids and 3-methylindole (skatole). An important role seems to be played also by some products of oxidation of linolenic acid and its derivates. In cattle the role of skatole seems to be less important than sheep because of the lack of the branched-chain fatty acids. The pastoral flavour seems to be mostly determined by products of oxidation of linolenic acid and its derivates which derives substantially from grass. - espèces. Chez l’agneau les flaveurs particulières liées à un régime à base d’herbe serait majoritairement déterminée par l’association d’acides gras ramifiés et de scatole (3 méthyle indole), et dans une moindre mesure par des produits issus de l’oxydation de l’acide linolénique. Inversement chez le boeuf, le rôle du scatole serait réduit par l’absence d’acides gras ramifiés, et la flaveur de la viande liée au pâturage serait plutôt à relier à l’oxydation de l’acide linolénique provenant de l’herbe. alimentation à base d’herbe / couleur de la viande / flaveur de la viande / ruminants 1. INTRODUCTION Many factors influence ruminant meat quality and all of them can be divided for simplicity into two categories: factors directly linked with the animal (breed, age, sex, etc.) and factors external to the animal (diet, weather, slaughtering procedures, etc.) indicated by the generic expression “environmental”. Among the environmental factors, feeding plays an important role in the determination of quality. However, the specific effects of the dietary constituents on meat quality are not easy to evaluate. The feeding regime can have an influence on animal growth rate and it is difficult to establish if the meat characteristics are due to the dietary components for their intrinsic properties or if the diet has influenced growth rate and the body composition in animals [ 48 ]. Different carcass fatness could lead to differences in the rate of rigor development even if the carcasses are stored under the same conditions [ 59 ]. This could influence meat colour, tenderness, etc. In most of the experiments that study the effect of a diet on meat quality, the animals are slaughtered at different ages (same weight, but different growth rate) or at different weights (same age and again different growth rate). This problem is particularly evident when studies make comparison between production systems. Of course these experiments are useful because they investigate real production situations, however a correct interpretation of the data is more difficult: how is it possible to discriminate between the effects of the diet on animal growth rate (and indirectly on carcass and meat quality) and the direct effects of the dietary constituents on meat quality? Another problem of interpretation of data is when a comparison of diets on meat quality is made between animals allowed to move freely and animals restricted in feedlots. The effect of feeding may be confounded with the different physical activity. The principal characteristic of herbivores and ruminants in particular, is the capability of the micro-organisms present in their gut (or fore-stomach) to degrade (and utilise) the cellulose. Ruminants convert forages into products of high biological value, useful for human nutrition (meat, milk, blood). In recent years, however, the genetic potential of the animals and the different zootechnical practises have changed the situation. A high-producing animal, has not the capacity to ingest the energy requirements for his high production, totally by forages and requires concentrate supplementation. Animals raised on different production systems produce different concentrations of volatile fatty acids (VFA) in (...truncated)


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Alessandro Priolo, Didier Micol, Jacques Agabriel. Effects of grass feeding systems on ruminant meat colour and flavour. A review, Animal Research, pp. 185-200, Volume 50, Issue 3, DOI: doi:10.1051/animres:2001125