How Much Progress Can Be Made Selecting For Palatability Traits?

Beef palatability traits include incidence of connective tissue, juiciness, and flavor but what I am going to focus on in this presentation are Warner-Bratzler shear values and taste panel tenderness. These latter two characteristics are those about which we hear the most discussion regarding problems in consumer trials. Warner-Bratzler shear is an objective method of measuring meat tenderness. Steaks are cooked, cores are removed from the steaks, and then a machine measures the force required for a knife-like device to cut through the core of meat. Taste panel tenderness is an evaluation of meat tenderness based on a 1 to 8 scale with 1 being essentially inedible because of its toughness to 8 being extremely tender. Earlier consumer studies have shown that 15 to 20% of steaks were deficient in tenderness and certainly this fact should negatively affect beef consumption. Retailers, in an effort to promote meat sales, guarantee the tenderness of the meat that they sell and restaurants do so as well. The USDA recognizes over 50 certification programs which have as their goal the assurance of some level of guaranteed palatability. The majority of the certification programs refer to Angus, or at least cattle that are black in color. Thus, the issue of meat tenderness and the possibility of improving it through selection, especially in Angus cattle, is highly relevant for this conference. In order to select successfully for a trait we first have to be able to measure the trait in some fashion, apply selection pressure by using the most desirable animals to a greater extent than the less desirable animals (that is, to apply selection pressure in animal breeding lingo) and also, the traits have to be at least moderately heritable. By heritable, I mean that the differences between animals for this trait must be at least partially controlled by genes whose effects are passed consistently on to their progeny, that is, additive genes. In this presentation I will discuss the measures by which we measure tenderness, the difficulties associated with doing so, the heritabilities of tenderness traits and the results to date of a study being conducted at the University of Florida aimed at selecting for Warner-Bratzler shear in Angus cattle.