Marbling In Meat Lubrication

Marbling helps to insure acceptable tenderness at higher levels of doneness.

Marbling in meat lubrication.

Review of material what the student should know. As meat is cooked to more advanced degrees of doneness the tougher it will get. Also called intramuscular fat marbling adds flavor and is one of the main criteria for judging the quality of cuts of meat. If marbling enhances juici ness by serving as a lubricant around muscle bundles then it should be uniformly and finely dispersed throughout the lean.

1 the fundamental factors related to differences in meat tenderness. Marbling is so named because the streaks of fat resemble a marble pattern. In general the more marbling it contains the better a cut of meat is. Marbling keeps the meat moist during cooking so natural juices don t evaporate in the pan.

Marble score or grades are a component of the aus meat beef quality grading system and is assessed within the ribeye muscle. Bulk density or lubrication effect. There is less muscle fiber and collagen per unit volume of meat potentially requiring less oral processing foster et al. Overcooking is marbling s worst nightmare since it renders all the fat out of the meat leaving behind a dry and tough steak without the moist flavors we know and love.

As the level of marbling increases in meat the bulk density decreases.