Marbled meat

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Marbled meat is meat, especially red meat, which contains various amounts of intramuscular fat, giving it an appearance similar to marble. Meat with a high marbling content tends to be more juicy, tender, and flavorful than meat without. Cuts of meat graded Prime by the USDA have the highest marbling content when compared to other grades making them highly desirable by consumers and can fetch a premium at restaurants and supermarkets. ^[1]

Marbling can be influenced by selective breeding. Cattle breeds such as Angus, Shorthorns, and Wagyu type cattle and dairy breeds such as the Jersey, Holstein-Friesian, and Braunvieh have higher marbling scores on average versus most European cattle such as Simmentals, Charolais, or Chianina.^{[citation needed]}

Marbling can also be influenced by time on feed and type of feed. The longer that a pen of beef cattle are on feed on the feedlot the higher the chance that they will grade higher on quality scores but have much lower yield grades (percentage of carcass lean to fat ratio) Feeding a high amount of cereal grains such as corn or barley will improve the color of the carcass fat from a brackish yellow to a bright clean white, plus increase the chance of obtaining a higher quality grades.^{[citation needed]}

Veal has little to no marbling since young cattle put on subcutaneous fat first, KPH (kidney, pelvic and heart fat) second, intermusclar (between the muscle, or "seam fat") third and then intramuscular fat - "marbling" - last. Sheep and goats do the same.^{[citation needed]}

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[edit] References

1. ^ U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, ARS, USDA (September 9, 1994). Effect of Marbling Degree on Beef Palatability in Bos taurus and Bos indicus Cattle. USDA. Retrieved on September 16, 2006.