Champaign IL. – The American Meat Science Association (AMSA) is excited to announce the speakers at the AMSA Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC) Beef Quality: Marbling Development Concurrent Session Funded by The Beef Checkoff, on Monday, June 18.
The speakers will be John Stika, President of Certified Angus Beef LLC; Dr. Clinton Krehbiel of Oklahoma State University; Dr. Bradley Johnson, Gordon W. Davis Regent’s Chair in Meat Science and Muscle Biology at Texas Tech University and Dr. Stephen Smith, professor of meat science in the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University.
The speakers will focus on these topics:
1. Relevance of Marbling to the Beef Industry. Dr. John Stika’s presentation will explore how consumer taste preferences for beef have justifiably had a significant influence on the industry’s strategies to grow long-term beef demand. Marbling levels and beef quality impact consumer taste perceptions and are economically relevant factors to stakeholders in the industry. While consumers demand a high quality, well-marbled product, the production economics of the beef industry simultaneously emphasize the need to constantly improve efficiency of production.
2. Effects of nutrition and Management During the Stocker Phase on Marbling Score and Quality Grade. Dr. Clinton Krehbiel will talk about iImproving nutritional and management strategies for growing beef cattle to enhance final carcass quality will not only benefit the beef industry as a whole, but will provide producers with more incentive to produce high-quality beef
products to meet consumer demand. His presentation will focus on pre-feedlot nutrition and management strategies that have the potential to impact marbling score and carcass quality. Possible mechanisms by which muscle potentially influences marbling development will also be discussed.
3. Role of Fatty Acids in Enhancing Marbling Development. Drs. Bradley Johnson and Stephen Smith will outline their results that show certain fatty acids, such as oleic acid, promote lipid filling in marbling adipose tissue while at the same time enriching beef with a healthful fatty acid. Their studies also show that oleic acid alters the expression of an important receptor, GPR 43 in intramuscular adipocytes but not subcutaneous adipocytes. Johnson and Smith believe that manipulation of this GPR43 receptor may have positive effects on marbling deposition in beef cattle.
The AMSA 65th Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC) will be held June 17-20, 2012, at North Dakota State University in Fargo, ND.
For more information regarding the AMSA 65th RMC please visit: http://www.meatscience.org/rmc or contact Deidrea Mabry 1-800-517-AMSA ext. 12 or dmabry@meatscience.org.
AMSA fosters community and professional development among individuals who create and apply science to efficiently provide safe and high quality meat defined as red meat (beef, pork and lamb), poultry, fish/seafood and meat from other managed species.
Source: American Meat Science Association
