Growth performance, carcass traits, physiochemical characteristics and intramuscular fatty acid composition of finishing Japanese black steers fed soybean curd residue and soy sauce cake

Abstract This study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary soybean curd residue (SCR) and soy sauce cake (SSC) on the growth performance, carcass traits and physiochemical and intramuscular fatty acid (FA) characteristics in Japanese Black steers. Ten steers (29.7 ± 0.3 months old, 856.6 ± 24.4 kg body weight) were assigned to either treatment C, fed a conventional concentrate or T, fed the test diet including dried SCR and SSC for 3 months. In growth performance, dry matter (DM) intake and average daily gain, and carcass traits did not differ significantly between the treatments. Color of beef was affected by the dietary treatments and meat samples from T showed higher a * value and chroma than those in C. On FA composition, there was no significant difference between the treatments in neutral lipids, whereas in polar lipids, meat samples from T had higher C16:1 ( P < 0.05) and tended to have higher C16:0 ( P = 0.05) and C18:1 ( P = 0.08), but lower C17:0 ( P = 0.098), C18:2 ( P = 0.06) and C20:4 ( P = 0.07) than those from C. The study suggested that SCR and SSC could be used as a substitute for conventional concentrate and would influence meat color and intramuscular FA composition of polar lipids.