Indicators of milk and beef quality

Authors: Editors: J.F. Hocquette and S. Gigli
The farming and agri-food sectors are faced with an increasing demand by consumers for high-quality products.The current major questions are thus how to define quality, and how to increase the quality of animal products to satisfy these new requirements.

This is the reason why the Cattle Commission of the European Association of Animal Production (EAAP) organised a specific session on this topic at its Annual Meeting which was held in Bled (Slovenia) in September 2004.

This session dealt with the manipulation and evaluation of bovine milk and meat composition and quality with various indicators (commercial, physical, biochemical, molecular or other). These indicators are any method, biological trait, or physical property which may be useful to predict a quality trait. Quality includes sensory traits, nutritional properties of products, their ability to be processed and also any consideration about traceability (genetic, geographic or nutritional traceability). Thus, the full spectrum of quality attributes are discussed. Indicators may also be considered as predictors. In this respect, contributors discussed the detection early in life of the ability of animals to produce meat or milk of high quality. Indicators may also be useful for consumers when they buy meat or milk as official or commercial signs of quality.

All the review papers and the short communications which were presented in this session will be in this EAAP publication entitled “Indicators of milk and beef quality”. Additional papers from invited authors were added to complete the publication.

Availability: In Print
Publication date: 2005
Binding: Hardback
Dimensions: Unknown
Weight: Unknown
Extent:464 pp
ISBN: (10 Digit) 90-76998-48-5 (13 Digit) 978-90-76998-48-0

Book Contents

Review papers
The challenge of quality
Genetic markers for beef quality
Genetic markers of milk quality in cows
Genes as indicators for milk composition
Current genomics in cattle and application to beef quality
Proteomics, an approach towards understanding the biology of meat quality
Muscle metabolism in relation to genotypic and environmental influences on consumer defined quality of red meat
Beef tenderness: significance of the calpain proteolytic system
Milk indicators for recognizing the types of forages eaten by dairy cows
High-fat rations and lipid peroxidation in ruminants: consequences on the health of animals and quality of their products
Enhancing the content of beneficial fatty acids in beef and consequences for meat quality
Nutritional quality of dairy products and human health
Current and emerging technologies for the prediction of meat quality
Determination of structure and textural quality of dairy and meat products using fluorescence and infrared spectroscopies coupled with chemometrics
The influence of nutrition, genotype and stage of lactation on milk casein composition
Milk for Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) cheeses: I. The main required features
Milk for Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) cheeses: II. The evaluation techniques of milk suitability
Key success factors of competitive position for some Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cheeses
Qualification of milk producers in some Protected Designations of Origin: expert assessment conditions.
Qualification of the origin of beef meat in Europe
Analysis of socio-technical determinants based on French practices
Short communications: Milk and dairy products
aS1-casein yield and milk composition are associated with a polymorphic regulatory element in the bovine aS1-casein gene
Genetic improvement of milk quality traits for cheese production
Breed effect on milk coagulation and cheese quality parameters of dairy cattle
The impact of total somatic cells and polymorphonuclear leucocyte cells on the quality of milk and on the chemical composition of cheese
Relationship between soluble carbohydrate/nitrogen ratio in grass and milk fatty acid composition in cows: role of ruminal metabolism
CLA content and n-3/n-6 ratio in dairy milk as affected by farm size and management
Fatty acid composition and CLA content of milk fat from Italian Buffalo
Flavonoids and other phenolics in milk as a putative tool for traceability of dairy production systems
Milk quality and automatic milking: effects of free fatty acids
Milk quality and automatic milking: effects of teat and system cleaning
Short communications: Beef
An association of leptin gene polymorphism with carcass traits in cattle
Molecular and biochemical muscle characteristics of Charolais bulls divergently selected for muscle growth
Proteomics applied to the analysis of bovine muscle hypertrophy
Pasture-based beef production systems may influence muscle characteristics and gene expression
Meat toughness as affected by muscle type
Blood serum metabolites levels and some meat characteristics in double muscled young bulls
Understanding the effect of gender and age on the pattern of fat deposition in cattle
Influence of breed, diet and muscle on the fatty acid content in meat from young finished bulls
Adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein expression and mitochondrial activity as indicators of intramuscular fat content in young bulls
The fatty acid profiles of meat from calves fed linseed of oily cultivars
Effects of diets supplemented with oil seeds and vitamin E on specific fatty acids of rectus abdominis muscle in Charolais fattening bulls
Dietary tea catechins and lycopene: effects on meat lipid oxidation
Lack of correlation between vitamin B12 content in bovine muscles and indicators of the body stores in vitamin B12
Assessment of the impact of herd management on sensorial quality of Charolais heifer meat
Comparison of rearing systems at low environmental impact: Quality meat of beef cattle in central Italy
Authors index
Keyword index