Meat quality from cattle kept with extensive grazing -: 3.: Fatty acid composition of the intramuscular fat by the musculus longissimus dorsi

The consumption of beef in Germany has been reduced during the last years. The reason is the discussion about the BSE-crisis. Only high quality beef from cattle of natural living conditions seems to find a good market at the consumers. In addition cattle breeding on natural pastures can make a contribution to save the landscape and can provide the opportunity for farmers to have additional income. An experiment about three years has been organised: The aim was to examine the influence of differently manured pastures on the development of carcass and meat quality. This was analysed for three different genotypes. The influence that these factors have on fatty acid composition is discussed in this work. The conclusion is that sex and feeding conditions have a significant influence on the fatty acid composition. The intramuscular fat from oxes and heifers fed on natural pastures shows a significant higher percentage of conjugated linioleic and linolenic acid than fat from bulls, intensive fed. On nature pastures cattle breeding gives a significant better ratio between n-6- and n-3-fatty acids. The results (2,23 for oxes and 2,43 for heifers) show the high nutritional-physiological value of this beef. In this experiment the quality of different pastures had no influence on the fatty acid composition.