Comparison of tastes-related components and eating quality between Hanwoo steer and cow longissimus dorsi muscles

The objective of this study was to compare tastes-related components and eating quality properties between Hanwoo steer and cow meats. Longissimus dorsi (LD) muscles with same quality grade (1⁺ grade) collected from left sides of the steer and cow carcasses were used for analyses of technological quality traits, free amino acids (FAA), metabolites, nucleotides, fatty acids and sensory attributes. Results unveiled that there were no differences occurring in the chemical composition (fat, protein, moisture and collagen) and technological quality traits (cooking loss, water holding capacity, shear force and color) between the two beef types (P>0.05). The cow meat exhibited significantly higher amounts of some FAAs associated with umami (e.g., glutamic acid and lysine), sweetness (e.g., proline and glutamic acid) and saltiness (e.g., histidine and glutamic acid) compared to the steer meat (P<0.05). Regarding the nucleotides, no differences occurred in all the identified nucleotides between the two beef types (P>0.05). A total of 27 metabolites were identified, however, only some compounds (e.g., acetate, creatine, creatinine, glucose and inosine etc.) showed their significantly higher amounts in the cow meat compared with those in the steer meat (P <0.05). In terms of sensory aspects, the panelists found no differences in scores of all the eating quality traits between the two sex types of beef (P>0.05). Overall, excepts some variations in tastes-active compounds, there were no differences in the quality characteristics in general and eating quality in particular between the cow and steer meats when they were in the same quality grade.