CAB Mythbusters
What they thought they knew that just ain’t true.
As a college graduate, I thought I had amassed a good portion of the knowledge I’d need for this job. (Maybe that was wishful thinking, given all the money I’d shelled out for that four-year experience.) The longer I’m in this position, the more often I think of this old adage: “The more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t know.”
That’s exactly the sense I get when we talk about how to get more cattle to qualify for Certified Angus Beef® (CAB®). As you may know, insufficient marbling is a factor in about 90% of the evaluated cattle that fall short of the brand. That could be a big handle to get hold of, yet I’ve had people roll their eyes when I bring it up, like they’ve heard it all before.
Myth: We’ve studied marbling for so long, there’s no point in researchers going over it again.
Fact: In the past couple of decades, the concentration of research on end-product traits has certainly intensified. As the market and business have placed more economic importance on things like marbling, the academic community has placed more importance on studying all the factors that affect it.
I’ve read the abstracts, listened to the presentations and done the interviews. I know there are hundreds of smart people who are digging into the science behind all those things that make you more money on a grid.
One of those is muscle biologist Brad Johnson. A couple years ago we were talking about how implants do nothing to improve carcass quality, and for the most part knock it back a peg. He said he envisions a future where that’s not the case.
“We’ve tried to embark on a series of research trials here recently at Texas Tech that have investigated the how’s and why’s of steroidal implants' impacts on marbling. We know they have profound effects on skeletal muscle growth. If we can unlock some of those mysteries of what’s going on then we can manage it. We could still benefit from the improvement in productivity and efficiency of these tools and try to mitigate the negative effects on beef quality, like marbling.”
How cool would that be?
Then he threw around terms like adipoblasts, mesenchymal precursor cells, transdifferentiation. (Needless to say, I had to do a little decoding before I wrote “Efficient, high-quality beef.”) The point is, this is all stuff that they didn’t know five, 10, 15 years ago. Imagine what those same researchers will know a decade from now.
Read the latest update on the Angus Foundation’s partnership with the beef checkoff and three universities in the January 2013 Angus Beef Bulletin, “Uncovering the Secrets of Marbling,” or check out this video clip to hear from Brad yourself, as he talks about what they’re up to and why: A new look at marbling development.
May your bottom line be filled with black ink.
Editor's Note: To get a regular dose of this kind of feature, visit the Black Ink Blog at www.blackinkwithcab.com.
