What Causes Marbling In Beef

Many conditions can cause mottled skin.

What causes marbling in beef.

Certain breeds have higher marbling scores on average due to the way they metabolize food. Cattle that are raised on grain will have more marbling than grass fed beef this is fairly intuitive since you can imagine how difficult it would be to get fat by eating grass. Blood circulation problems and blood vessel spasms are two common causes. Marbling scores are combined with maturity scores the age of the animal to determine those quality grades.

Feed and finishing may also impact marbling with grass finished cattle offering a leaner beefier flavor whereas grain finished beef are much milder. Beef carcass quality grading is based on 1 degree of marbling and 2 degree of maturity. The fat makes the meat softer and easier to chew as there is simply less muscle fibre and collagen per unit volume of meat. Graders evaluate the amount and distribution of marbling in the ribeye muscle at the cut surface after the carcass has been ribbed between the 12th and 13th ribs.

Marbling is the main component used to divide beef cuts in to usda quality grades like choice and prime. But beef marbling is not always a good gauge of tenderness in grass fed beef cattle. Shock is a serious and life threatening condition. Grades are used to assign value to cuts of beef.

But if marbling is what consumers want we can increase marbling at different times in the feeding cycle without making the cattle fatter and that would be a huge benefit for the beef industry. The following factors affect marbling in beef. The white fat streaks in beef are simply a convenient gauge of whether those all important microscopic fat cells within the meat fibers are present in sufficient amounts. Marbling is a measure of quality and as such the meat industry is always using meat science to make production more predictable and uniform to boost profits.

More marbling results in a juicier and more tender eating experience. Wagyu beef for example can be extremely marbled due to its genetics so much so that it s prized for that marbling. The presence of marbling has an extremely positive effect on the eating quality of beef in terms of tenderness juiciness moisture and flavour.