Association between dairy meat quality with gender, slaughter age, and marbling score, and relationships among the meat quality traits

Abstract

Gender of dairy cattle did not influence all studied traits (P>0.05). Age at slaughter did not influence the most meat traits, except L* value (P<0.05). Meat from the oldest animals, 5 yr old, exhibited significantly lower L* value than the younger animals, 2, and 3 yr old (P<0.05). Marbling score significantly affected traits (P<0.05), except pH, a* and b* color values (P>0.05). The muscle obtained higher marbling scores had more dry matter and ether extracted (intramuscular fat content). Increased marbling score was related to decrease shear force. The lightness of muscle with the highest marbling score had the highest mean L* =52.8. There was strongly positive correlated between %DM and %EE (r= 0.91, P<0.01). The positive relationships between %EE, and L* and b* were found. Shear force was positively correlated with cooking loss (P<0.01), but it was negatively related to L* (P<0.01).