Meat + Poultry - May 2008 - 116

THE INSIDER
Ground beef brisket
If you're someone who doesn't think there's a health benefit in beef brisket, read on.
A recent Texas A&M study reveals beef brisket contains 'depots' or tiny reservoirs of
healthy monounsaturated fatty acids. 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.
Processors may capitalize on this. Smith added. By identifying fat depots that carry the beneficial monounsaturated fatty acids, operations in trimming rooms at meat
processing plants may be modified without expensive equipment, Smith claims. "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.

OVER HERD
"We can't raise
prices fast
enough to keep
up with the
rising cost of our
inputs"
- Richard Bond, Tyson Foods
Inc. president and CEO, during a
conference call with financial analysts
after announcing a loss of $5 million in
the company's second fiscal quarter.

Cattle call
A recent early morning traffic report posted April 29 on the Charlotte Observer's news
Web site, Charlotte.com, alerted commuters that an overturned truck hauling cattle
on a main thoroughfare was causing a backup after a number of cattle escaped the
wreckage and were wandering along the roadway. We appreciated the tongue-incheek advice of the report's author, Steve Lyttle: "Motorists, obviously, should avoid the
area this morning - unless they have some rodeo or cattle-ranching experience."

PRIME RIBBING

Brought to you by MEAT&POULTRY Magazine

Cartoon by Bob Bliss

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The beef indus try takes a pie fra,+he
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122

MEAT&POULTRY

May 2008

www.MEATPOULTRY.com

Podcast appeal?
The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's
Food Safety and Inspection Service's announcement it will provide small and very small plant
owners, operators and employees with food safety and education information through the use
of podcasts is part of its ongoing
outreach efforts to those operations. We applaud the agency's
progressive approach to reaching
an industry segment made up of
many owner-operators that we
assumed were too busy running
their businesses to download
presentations to their high-tech
device of choice.
The FSIS says the podcasts will
be short, factual audio and video
fi les featuring scientists, policy
experts and other specialists. We
will be interested to find out how
many requests the agency gets
from the small and very small
plant owners it is targeting.

http://www.Charlotte.com http://www.MEATPOULTRY.com

Meat + Poultry - May 2008

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