Background： Consuming moderate amounts of lean red meat as part of a balanced diet valuably contributes to intakes of essential nutrients, in this study, we merged phenotypic and genotypic ...information to characterize the variation in lipid profile and sensory parameters and to represent the diversity among 15 cattle populations. Correlations between fat content, organoleptic characteristics and lipid profiles were also investigated. Methods： A sample of 436 largely unrelated purebred bulls belonging to 15 breeds and reared under comparable management conditions was analyzed. Phenotypic data -including fatness score, fat percentage, individual fatty acids （FA） profiles and sensory panel tests- and genotypic information from 11 polymorphisms was used. Results： The correlation coefficients between muscle total lipid measurements and absolute vs. relative amounts of polyunsaturated FA （PUFA） were in opposite directions. Increasing carcass fat leads to an increasing amount of FAs in triglycerides, but at the same time the relative amount of PUFAs is decreasing, which is in concordance with the negative correlation obtained here between the percentage of PUFA and fat measurements, as well as the weaker correlation between total phospholipids and total lipid muscle content compared with neutral lipids. Concerning organoleptic characteristics, a negative correlation between fiavour scores and the percentage of total PUFA, particularly to n-6 fraction, was found. The correlation between juiciness and texture is higher than with flavour scores. The distribution of SNPs plotted by principal components analysis （PCA） mainly reflects their known trait associations, although influenced by their specific breed allele frequencies. Conclusions： The results presented here help to understand the phenotypic and genotypic background underlying variations in FA composition and sensory parameters between breeds. The wide range of traits and breeds studied, along with the genotypic information on polymorphisms previously associated with different lipid traits, provide a broad characterization of beef meat, which allows giving a better response to the variety of consumers＇ preferences. Also, the development and implementation of low-density SNP panels with predictive value for economically important traits, such as those summarized here, may be used to improve production efficiency and meat quality in the beef industry.
Reactions of consumers to the appearance and taste of pork with and without information concerning outdoor production of pigs were tested in France, Denmark, Sweden and UK. Consumers in all four ...countries focussed on colour and fatness rather than marbling and drip to make their choice. Almost half of the British and Danish preferred the paler and the French the darker pork. Most people preferred the leaner pork. When information was provided in the form of labels, the vast majority of consumers preferred the pork labelled as originating from their own country as opposed to ‘imported’ and that labelled as pork from pigs ‘raised outside’ as opposed to ‘inside’. There was no difference in the taste of grilled pork from indoor and outdoor production systems but pork labelled ‘home produced’ or ‘outdoor’ were more appreciated. Consumers’ willingness to pay varied widely and was higher for those consumers who found more of the characteristics they sought. Consumers offered about 5% more for ‘home country’ and ‘raised outside’ labels.
ABSTRACT
Consumer placement tests, which are used to assess products in an appropriate context, were performed in 36 households comprising 2 to 8 persons in England, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy ...and Spain using leg joints from 2 types of lamb raised in each of those countries. Ratings of odor, tenderness, juiciness, flavor and overall liking were different among lamb types and overall, the least tender was the least liked. Variations in ratings of cooking odor given by the cook only, which were most marked by the Greek and Spanish panels, were correlated with assessments of the other qualities given by the whole household. Variations in liking were less among individuals within a household than between households and reduced as the number of individuals in a household increased. The structure of a panel is important and should be taken into account when analyzing and concluding from consumer placement tests.
In this paper we propose a method for learning the reasons why groups of consumers prefer some food products instead of others of the same type. We emphasize the role of groups given that, from a ...practical point of view, they may represent market segments that demand different products. Our method starts representing in a metric space people preferences; there we are able to define similarity functions that allow a clustering algorithm to discover significant groups of consumers with homogeneous tastes. Finally in each cluster, we learn, with a SVM, a function that explains the tastes of the consumers grouped in the cluster. Additionally, a feature selection process highlights the essential properties of food products that have a major influence on their acceptability. To illustrate our method, a real case of consumers of lamb meat was studied. The panel was formed by 773 people of 216 families from 6 European countries. Different tastes between Northern and Southern families were enhanced.
Background: Consuming moderate amounts of lean red meat as part of a balanced diet valuably contributes to intakes of essential nutrients. In this study, we merged phenotypic and genotypic ...information to characterize the variation in lipid profile and sensory parameters and to represent the diversity among 15 cattle populations. Correlations between fat content, organoleptic characteristics and lipid profiles were also investigated. Methods: A sample of 436 largely unrelated purebred bulls belonging to 15 breeds and reared under comparable management conditions was analyzed. Phenotypic data -including fatness score, fat percentage, individual fatty acids (FA) profiles and sensory panel tests- and genotypic information from 11 polymorphisms was used. Results: The correlation coefficients between muscle total lipid measurements and absolute vs. relative amounts of polyunsaturated FA (PUFA) were in opposite directions. Increasing carcass fat leads to an increasing amount of FAs in triglycerides, but at the same time the relative amount of PUFAs is decreasing, which is in concordance with the negative correlation obtained here between the percentage of PUFA and fat measurements, as well as the weaker correlation between total phospholipids and total lipid muscle content compared with neutral lipids. Concerning organoleptic characteristics, a negative correlation between flavour scores and the percentage of total PUFA, particularly to n-6 fraction, was found. The correlation between juiciness and texture is higher than with flavour scores. The distribution of SNPs plotted by principal components analysis (PCA) mainly reflects their known trait associations, although influenced by their specific breed allele frequencies. Conclusions: The results presented here help to understand the phenotypic and genotypic background underlying variations in FA composition and sensory parameters between breeds. The wide range of traits and breeds studied, along with the genotypic information on polymorphisms previously associated with different lipid traits, provide a broad characterization of beef meat, which allows giving a better response to the variety of consumers' preferences. Also, the development and implementation of low-density SNP panels with predictive value for economically important traits, such as those summarized here, may be used to improve production efficiency and meat quality in the beef industry.
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