The impact of lean meat yield on Australian lamb eating quality is partially driven by intramuscular fat.

The impact of increasing lean meat yield (LMY) on consumer eating acceptance and its association with intramuscular fat (IMF) of lamb products was evaluated. Consumer sensory scores (overall liking, tenderness, juiciness, flavour liking) of the loin and topside were obtained from 3119 lambs, in addition to the knuckle, leg, outside, rack, rump and shoulder from a subset of these animals (n = 824). LMY indicators included GR tissue depth (measured 110 mm from dorsal midline of 12th rib), whole carcass and section (fore, saddle, hind) computed tomography (CT) lean% and cut weight of the loin and topside (as a percentage of the total carcass weight).

Challenges in Applying Multimodal Imaging Technologies to Quantify In Vivo Glycogen and Intramuscular Fat in Livestock.

Predicting meat quality, especially dark, firm and dry meat, as well as muscle fat prior to slaughter, presents a challenge in practice. Medical as well as high-frequency ultrasound applications can be utilized to predict body composition and meat quality aspects. Ultrasounds are non-invasive, rapid-to-operate in vivo and show high correlations to the animal production traits being estimated.

Consumer flavour liking contributes the most to sensory overall liking of Australian lamb.

Untrained consumer-determined sensory scores of tenderness, juiciness, flavour liking, and overall liking possess a level of dependency due to poorer consumer ability to discriminate between these traits. Given that overall liking is strongly correlated to all traits, this study evaluated the contributions of sensory traits to the overall liking scores of Australian lamb. Tenderness, juiciness, flavour liking and overall liking of a range of lamb cuts were assessed by untrained Australian consumers (n = 18,720) following Meat Standards Australia protocols.

Oxygen concentration in MAP can be reduced with minimal impact on eating quality of lamb.

This study evaluated the impact of high oxygen modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) in four different combinations, 80 % oxygen and 20 % carbon dioxide (MAP80), 40 % oxygen, 20 % carbon dioxide and 40 % nitrogen (MAP40(20CO)), 40 % oxygen, 60 % carbon dioxide (MAP40(60CO)), and vacuum skin packaging (VSP) under different retail display times (3 or 8 days) on the sensory scores of lamb meat. Untrained consumer sensory scores for overall liking, tenderness, juiciness and liking of flavour were assessed on the M. longissimus lumborum (loin) and M.

The construction of a sheepmeat eating quality prediction model for Australian lamb.

The current sheep Meat Standards Australia (MSA) model is a pathways system designed to improve the overall eating quality of Australian lamb, yet it is unable to predict individual consumer-based eating quality scores for specific cuts. This paper describes the methodology of using consumer sensory scores to create an objective composite eating quality prediction score linked to individual quality grades for different cuts. This methodology accounts for objective carcass measures that are being commercialised within the industry, such as intramuscular fat percentage and a measure of lean meat yield percentage.