Effects of Season and Age on Eating Quality of Beef from Guraghe Cattle Breed Slaughtered in Public Abattoirs of Hadiya Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

Eating quality of beef from Guraghe cattle breeds slaughtered in public abattoirs at Hadiya Zone of Ethiopia under different age and season were evaluated in this study. For this purpose, a total of 48 meat samples which were stratified into three age groups (4-5, 5-7, and 7-9 years) and two seasons (wet and dry) were collected from longissimus-dorsi (LD) muscle between 12^th and 13^th ribs. Quality parameters such as initial pH (pHi) and ultimate pH (pHu), instrumental tenderness using Warner Bratzler Shear Force Device (WBSF), eating quality of meat using sensory panel, water holding capacity (WHC), and cooking loss (CL) were evaluated after aging the meat samples for 14 days. The overall mean values of WBSF, sensory tenderness, juiciness, flavor, pHi, pHu, WHC, and CL were 31.46±1.37, 7.08±0.08, 7.07±0.07, 7.34±0.10, 6.73±0.02, 5.63±0.02,70.83±0.15, and 17.55±0.68, respectively. Age at slaughter and season had significantly influenced (P<0.05) Warner Bratzler Shear Force value. The interaction of age and season significantly influenced juiciness (P< 0.001) and the water holding capacity (P <0.05). The percentages of dark firm dry (DFD) meat in the wet and dry seasons were 25% and 8.33%, respectively. Instrumental tenderness (WBSF) showed high significant negative correlation with sensory tenderness and high significant positive correlation with flavor and Juiciness. Cooking loss showed high significant positive correlation with pHi in the wet season. From the study, it was concluded that eating quality of beef from Guraghe cattle breed was tender. The younger the cattle the better the quality of beef. The better quality of beef in the dry compared to the wet season justifies the need to identify and minimize the degree of stress due to draft service that possibly affected quality of the beef in the latter season. From the study, it was recommended that beef quality improvement strategy in the region should consider mechanisms that minimize multi-stress factors in the wet season and encourage slaughter of the cattle at a young age.