Learning to identify good beef

By Asmara Nabayaza

A visit to the butchery was never my picnic. I could never tell the best meat from among the chunks displayed. And there was always some complaint whenever I would buy what I deemed to be the best.

That is until I met Dr Kwizera Musaba, chief meat inspector in Uganda Meat Industries Abattoir (former meat parkers). He said it was easy to notice beef that will yield great tasty soup from a distance.

There are many people who still buy whatever is called meat. And butchers love such people. They sell them the meat those in the know are likely to reject.

According to Dr Kwizera, beef is a major source of iron, proteins and some B Vitamins. But all these nutrients depend on the quality of meat you eat. That is why it is important to tell good meat from the rest.

“The quality of beef depends on age, breed and sex of the animal as well as the hanging and storage,” the veterinary doctor says. “Young animals (below 18 months) have soft muscles with tender beef and their meat is popular.
The older a cow gets, the tougher, bigger and more fatty the muscles get.”

My aunt had given me a trick. She always spotted good meat from the colour of its fats. “Look for white fats,” she would tell me. The doctor agrees that white fats are indicative of youthfulness in a cow. “As a cow grows, the colour of the fat changes progressively from white towards yellow. Yellow fats in meat is usually evidence of an aged animal whose beef is likely to take long to cook”.

However, yellow fat may be a result of feed. Dr Kwizera says cows from Ankole and Buganda mainly feed on the natural grass, rich in carotenoid, which deposits in muscles as yellow fat.
“It is difficult to differentiate yellow fat from feed and old age.”

John Semolya, the quality controller, says you can also tell good meat from the colour. Good beef is not blood red or crimson. Beef with a light red colour indicates young and tender beef and is thus the best.

“It has a low muscle fibre accumulation and a light red colour.”

Semolya advises people to go for light red meat with a fair white fat distribution. It is easily cooked, the fair distribution of fats makes it juicy and enables it to absorb spices.

Good beef should also look fresh and moist but not watery, Dr Kwizera added. “It should have small flecks of fat through the lean meat, which keeps it moist and tender when cooking. It should have little or no gristle (cartilage) between the fat and the lean.”

Hajj Muzamir Katende, who always drives from Najjanankumbi to Meat Parkers for meat says there is nothing that annoys him like being served bad meat. He gives an example of exotic cows which he says don’t compare with local cows. “Breed determines good meat. And cows, which mainly feed on the natural grass, have good beef”.

Sex is the other factor. In Uganda, animals are fed according to the value attached to them. According to Semolya, preferential feeding habits are usually given to females, such as nursing and milking ones.

“Female cows are not usually subjected to vigorous exercises and this gives them less muscle fibre with soft tender beef and white fats.”

Even when they are fed on natural grass to get carotenoid, milking animals will still have less yellow fat because the carotenoid is synthesised into Vitamin A, which passes into milk.

Meat, which is hanged after slaughter is good because blood oozes out, the redness in the meat reduces and air dries it up to deny bacteria (pathogen) entry.

Kwizera advises people to look for rib and fillet steaks. “Such parts are less exercised and have less muscle fibre accumulation”.

He assured the public that because 95% of meat industry is occupied and regulated by Muslims, slaughtering dead animals for consumption is rare.

Such meat can easily be seen. It usually has a dark cutting (beyond purple) or is too pale, watery and very soft. If you press your finger into it, it easily sinks in.
But it is rare to find such in butcheries around.