Marbling is a term used to describe the fat content inside of beef muscle known as intramuscular fat.
Marbling in different breeds.
It is particularly present in slow growing breeds such as highland galloway or.
Cattle breeds such as angus herefords murray grey shorthorns and wagyu also british white cattle and dairy breeds such as the jersey holstein friesian and braunvieh have higher marbling scores on average versus other cattle such as simmentals charolais or chianina.
Johnson said the genetics of cattle breeds used in the u s.
Marbling is determined by both genetics and nutrition.
Simply won t allow for marbling comparable to asian breeds although dairy breeds such as holsteins which make up about 20 percent of the beef cattle industry do marble very well and without much backfat.
We ll talk more about fat development later but it s.
Marbling takes time to develop in an animal which is why it is more prevalent in beef than in lamb or pork.
Breed comparison studies many breed comparison studies have been accomplished through production of crossbred progeny specifically f 1 calves in many cases where the different breeds evaluated have been.
The taste scores were awarded for steak from different breeds that were not controlled for their marbling scores.
Marbling can also be influenced by time on feed.
And some cattle breeds simply will not produce marbled meat no matter what they are fed how fat they get or how tender their beef is.
Although some people disagree about the quality of different types of marbling the following is the generally accepted standard.
In this article i will explain when marbling is a good gauge of beef tenderness when it is not and how else to gauge beef tenderness when marbling is not a suitable gauge of beef tenderness.
In other words the study compared the taste of steaks which had different marbling scores which is like comparing apples with oranges.
The lean muscle has a high frequency of thin evenly distributed flecks of fat.
Generally wagyu will develop considerably more marbling than other breeds.
Intramuscular fat is the flecks of white fat found within the actual lean muscle intermuscular fat is different this term is used to describe the fat that is found between the different muscles in the beef carcass.
Marbling comes in different shapes and sizes and not all beef marbling indicates greatness.
Most are feedlot fed on carefully designed rations of straw for roughage and grain for protein and carbohydrates.
Murray grey cattle grazing at autumn s harvest in new york however different cattle breeds metabolize their food differently so the resulting meat varies.
Since black angus as a breed features finely textured marbling it s a tried and true beautifully marbled beef.
