You can also sign up for their forum (free) and ask directly there if, access through that last link. Good luck.

terminology all seems grey and very confusing, and seems like not many people do bulk pork for us to get our hands on.

The thinking now is that it’s not so much where the fat is or when it was deposited, but what the animal was being fed at the time that counts. We now talk transfats, mono vs poly unsaturated fats, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol, Omega 6 and 3 ratios, etcetera. Suffice to say that things are more nuanced 20 years on.

Anyway, subcutaneous fats in ruminants come and go seasonally. The better the season the more subcutaneous fat they lay down for the leaner times ahead, carcass fat is also an insulator. One of the reasons I farm Belted Galloway cattle is because they have a double coat (as do the Highland cattle). This means they need less subcutaneous fat for temperature control, which means they are slightly better feed converters of roughage to protein.

Marbling has several causes: sex, diet, exercise, genetics, age.
Sex; heifers ‘go to fat’ faster and earlier than steers.
Diet; a grain rich diet is like feeding a child nothing but chips and ice cream they go to fat fast.
Exercise; a feedlot is the same as immobilizing the same child in front of the TV all day, s/he gets fat faster.
Genetics; certain breeds are more efficient energy converters to meat than others. There are three basic types of cattle: the draught breeds, the milk breeds, and the meat breeds. The draught breeds were breed to be strong workers and lean and tough muscle is their signature. The milk breeds put most of their energy into milk production and are nigh on inedible. The meat breeds were selected over centuries for tenderness and flavour. Fat = flavour, so they tended to have better marbling characteristics. There are now genetic markers for marbling and unique genes have been identified (something else that was around during the 80’s). Wagyu, Highland and Galloway cattle have these genes and there may be others. Problem is the pursuit of hybrid vigour has diluted the genetics of many breeds.
Age; the older an animal the better the flavour partly due to better marbling but also we suspect due to a more varied diet. We killed and aged a 6 year old cull cow in the middle of the year. She was dry aged for 6 weeks and produced the best flavoured meat I have ever had.

We eat our animals way too young in Australia because time is money. Most of the beef you buy is 12 – 15 months old. Ours is closer to 30 months and I ‘d like to take this out to 36 months.

Anyway carcass fat comes and goes, intramuscular fat is laid down more slowly. Fat is on average also more prevalent in females – just like humans ;-) The intramuscular fat (marbling) gives flavour , as Maggie Beer says, “fat equals flavour”. Provided the fat has a balanced ratio of omega 6 and 3 fatty acids, and it is consumed in moderation, all will be well. This means the ruminant must be grass finished and it hard to find a grass finished ruminant in Australia.

Almost all beef in Australia is grass fed, but 98% of it is grain finished or had ‘grain assisted finishing’. Only last year the University of Sussex in their ‘heather raise lamb trials’ discovered that it only took one week for a ruminant to be on grain, for it’s omega 6 and 3’s to go out of balance. That is to go from healthy to unhealthy – we are what our food eats.

Sorry for the ramble, does it answer the question?
Oh Wagyu, yes Wagyu is ’sexed up’ by marketing hype. I will guarantee (if someone pays for the clinical trials) that if I feed a Wagyu and almost any of the British beef breeds, but certainly the Highlands and Galloways, the identical diet, and then did a double blind test, only the very best gastronomes might, just might, tell the difference. Even then they wouldn’t pick which was which beast and probably pick the British breed as having the better flavour.

you may be in the position to give me more info and get on another high horse (if it needs getting got on)(I love poor grammar).

I went to an Ag high school which, back in the 80’s, was probably pumping out methods and info from the 60’s (some of the textbooks were certainly of that vintage). however, something which struck me as being logical was this – fat laid down on an animal is over the carcass first, and only starts intruding into the muscle layers (ie, marbling) when the animal is already overweight. it was also taught to be an oilier and less healthy fat than that over the carcass. it wasn’t seen as healthy for the animal or the consumer. yet now marbling (I’m presuming Wagyu is right up there) is all the rage and ever-so desirable.

I’ve also always presumed it goes hand-in-hand with being grain-fed, which was also seen as unhealthy and sort of suspicious and Un-Orstralyan. at least the syllabus got that bit right.

so, is the fashion for marbling a cunning campaign for sexed-up meat or a good thing? or a bit of both? I’m still suspicious.

And thanks for the info on grain finished beef – I’ll just stick to eating yours.

I’d heard about the moisture infused ham, this originally started for two reasons, to counteract the moisture losses of the smoking process, and to speed up the curing by injecting the cure (nitrates salts and flavours) into the meat. What’s happened is that if some is good, more is better – the usual single bottom line focus.

Anyway I’d not heard of the moisture infused pork. Talk about treating the symptom and not the cause. In breeding the pigs so lean they lost the moisture and flavour, so the solution is to artificially reinsert it. Go figure.

As for the moist and flavourless beef, several reasons for this. Probably grain finished in a feed lot (CAFO) and secondly no ageing. Grain finished beef is a generic substance that all tastes pretty much the same as most feed lots use the same ‘ration’ and the animals are what they eat (us too). The ageing of beef is rarely done for 4 reasons, time, storage, shrinkage and trimming.

If a body of beef is aged for 3 weeks it loses 4-5% of it’s weight due to moisture evaporation. It loses a further 4-5% due to the drying out of the thin extremities and consequent trimming. So a loss in saleable weight of 8-10% when you are dealing in tens of thousands of tons of meat is many millions of dollars. That plus ‘time is money’ or slower stock turnover, and coolrooms are expensive floor space and cost $$ to run.

Nett result = moist flavourless meat, but big profits for all involved. I better shut up now as I’m on my high horse!

But before I do, one thing to try and buy if you can is grass finished beef. It is better for many reasons, but the quantifiable standout is this. After only one week on grain a ruminant’s meat fatty omega 6 and 3 fatty acid ratio changes to 24:1 and this is unhealthy. Grass finished beef/lamb/goat has the ratio of 3:1 which is the same as fish and healthy. 98% of beef is grain finished btw lamb 60% and climbing.

OK now I will shut up.

You might be pushing it time-wise, but you never know your luck. And it’s worth it – the first time we ate the Mountain Creek Farm pork Owy looked up from his fork and said “that was a very indulged pig”!