Effect of muscular hypertrophy on physico-chemical, biochemical and texture traits of meat from yearling bulls

Abstract The effect of the presence of the double-muscling gene either homozygous ( mh/mh ) or heterozygous ( mh /+) on the physico-chemical, biochemical and texture traits of Longissimus thoracis muscle of yearling bulls of the Asturiana de los Valles (AV) breed was studied. Meat of mh/mh bulls had lower amount of intramuscular fat ( p p p p p mh/mh animals having higher muscle glycolytic metabolism, assessed by a higher ( p p mh/mh bulls compared to mh /+ bulls. Texture measurements performed on raw material showed that meat of mh/mh bulls had lower resistance to total and 80% compression, which means lower background or collagen toughness. However, there were no differences between genotypes on shear force of cooked meat. Therefore, the physico-chemical, biochemical and texture traits of meat from mh/mh and mh /+ bull are in general significantly different, which could affect the sensorial quality of meat and hence the consumer acceptance.