Study of beef blade muscles’ differentiation depending on conformation and fat class

Abstract

The object of this study was to identify variation of the intramuscular fat and connective tissue content in different blade muscles in carcasses characterized by various quality grades. It was found that there is a cumulative impact of muscle and conformation class on intramuscular fat in blade muscle (P = 0.0330), as well as type of muscle and fat class (P = 0.0424), but there is no cumulative impact of conformation class and fat class (P = 0.1788). There is no cumulative influence of muscle type, conformation class, and fat class on amount of connective tissue in blade muscle, but the infraspinatus muscle was characterized by the highest quantity of connective tissue. The differences in the content of intramuscular fat in blade muscles depend on type of muscle as well as fat or conformation class, but there is no cumulative effect of fat and conformation class.