105 Inclusion of palm oil products in finishing diets on ground beef quality and retail stability.

Abstract Rising costs and fluctuating availability of supplemental fats has led to increased interest in alternative fat sources, including palm oil products, for use in feedlot diets. The objectives of this experiment were to evaluate the impact of refined, bleached, and deodorized (RBD) palm oil products on beef fat color and quality and shelf-life of ground beef. During the finishing phase, 320 steers (initial BW = 380 ± 14.5 kg) were allocated to 40 pens in a randomized block design and assigned to 1 of 5 dietary treatments, consisting of either no supplemental fat (No Oil), or supplemental corn oil (Corn Oil), whole palm oil (Whole Palm), stearin palm oil (Stearin), or olein palm oil (Olein). Supplemental oils were included at 4% of diet (DM basis) and replaced equal proportions of dry-rolled and high-moisture corn. Forty-eight h post-harvest, briskets were collected from three carcasses per pen, vacuum packaged, aged for 14 d, and frozen until analysis. Data were analyzed using the MIXED procedure of SAS, with pen as the experimental unit, and treatment and initial BW block as fixed effects. Subcutaneous fat from cattle fed Corn Oil was more yellow (b*) compared to cattle fed No Oil, Olein, Stearin, or Whole Palm (P < 0.05). However, there was no effect of treatment on lightness (L*) or redness (a*) of subcutaneous fat (P > 0.69). Ground beef was formulated to a consistent fat content and, as expected, moisture, protein, and fat content was not significantly different among treatments (P > 0.77). However, there was a tendency for ground beef from cattle fed palm oils to have increased collagen content compared to No Oil and Corn Oil treatments (P = 0.10). Beef from cattle fed Corn Oil, Stearin and Whole Palm had increased proportions of linoleic acid (C18:2n-6) compared to No Oil (P < 0.05). The proportions of C14:0, C14:1n-5, C16:0, C16:1n-7, C18:0, C18:1n-9, and C18:3n-3 were not impacted by treatment (P > 0.29). During simulated retail display, ground beef a* decreased from day 0 to day 7 for all treatments and there was an interaction (P < 0.01), where cattle fed Stearin and Whole palm had lower a* values on day 5 compared to No Oil, Corn Oil, and Olein. There was no diet × day interaction for ground beef L* or b* (P > 0.26). There was no diet × day interaction for thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS; P = 0.59) and there were no treatment effects (P = 0.18). From day 0 to day 7, however, TBARS increased (P < 0.01) for all dietary treatments. This experiment determined that RBD palm oil products have limited impacts on meat quality at this level of inclusion in feedlot diets.