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Study: Healthy ‘Depots’ Discovered in Beef Brisket
Courtesy Texas A&M
Blair Fannin
Contact: Dr. Stephen Smith
COLLEGE STATION – The beef brisket, treasured by most
Texas barbecue connoisseurs and a common staple found inside smoking
pits throughout the Lone Star State, contains ‘depots’ or tiny
reservoirs of healthy monounsaturated fatty acids, according to new
research. Oils like olive or canola are the best sources of
monounsaturated fatty acids since they contain 70 percent to 80 percent
oleic acid, according to experts.
“However, the fat in beef brisket from corn-fed steers contains nearly
50 percent oleic acid, and oleic acid increases the longer cattle are
fed a corn-based diet,” said Dr. Stephen Smith, a Texas AgriLife
Research meat scientist and professor in the department of animal
science at Texas A&M University.
Smith chaired a thesis study conducted by Stacey Turk, a Texas A&M
animal science graduate student. Turk’s study could trigger a change in
how meat processors view the brisket by offering a ground product that’s
more nutritious than those found in retail grocery outlets today.
“We found the brisket to be the most healthful area of the carcass,” she
said.
“The brisket in the southern parts of the U.S. is a well-known product.
However in the midwestern and eastern parts, briskets might be used for
corned beef products and the rest is shipped to the southern states.
Processors could use this idea to utilize the brisket for a healthier
ground product.”
This would allow processors to place a premium on a “ground brisket” and
market the product, Turk said. “Even if processors don't want to grind
the whole brisket, the point of the brisket where the web muscle lies is
where a lot of the fat is, and this could be separated from the other
part and used for a ground product,” she said.
However, “fat” isn’t a favored word among meat processors for fear they
will turn away heart-healthy conscious consumers. Attempts to overcome
this marketing hurdle will be a challenge, experts say. “I’ve talked to
different producer groups, and I’m trying to get the industry to
capitalize on this,” Smith said. “They don’t want to talk about fat in
their product, and I can understand that.”
However, producers of Wagyu beef raised in Japan, U.S. or Australia
aren’t afraid of the association with fat. Wagyu beef is known for its
high marbling and monounsaturated fat. “They produce a highly marbled
product and the more marbling, the healthier its fat composition,” Smith
said. “They’re not afraid of fat, and I hope the rest of the industry
sees that.”
Turk’s research suggests cattle breed type plays a role in determining
unsaturation or saturation of fat depots. This research points to Wagyu
cattle containing higher percentages of the monounsaturated palmitoleic
and oleic acids and lower percentages of the saturated palmitic and
stearic acids than our domestic breed types. Diet and time on feed
“strongly affect total fatty acid composition of fat depots,” Turk said.
Oleic acid levels increased with a feeder cattle’s age as well as with
time on a corn-based diet.
A new challenge is the current price of corn. At more than $5 a bushel,
it’s costing feedlot operators more money to fatten feeder cattle on
corn grain products prior to shipping to the packing plant, Smith said.
But there’s hope, Smith said. By identifying fat depots that carry the
beneficial monounsaturated fatty acids, operations in trimming rooms at
meat processing plants can be modified without expensive equipment.
“You don’t have to change the way you produce those cattle, what you can
change is in the trimming room and how you partition off those depots,”
Smith said.
Smith provided an example. “My wife likes a certain supermarket, and
when she goes in, she wants to buy a brisket,” he said. “It costs a
couple of dollars per pound, but she wants it trimmed. If they trim off
the outside fat, she usually breaks even since it goes up in price, but
weighs less. That fat trim is thrown away and could have otherwise been
salvaged and partitioned back at the processing plant and used in ground
beef.”
Overall, the research could be adopted with little capital expense
through the beef-processing sector, Turk said. “The beef industry can
utilize this information to adopt a relatively easy and inexpensive
method to increase the nutritional quality of processed beef products by
selecting specific fat trimmings,” Turk said.
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