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Instrumental assessments and sensory tests were performed to evaluate the effects of diet and postmortem ageing time (1, 7 and 21 days) on beef quality. A total of 48 Friesian calves were randomly allocated to four dietary treatments: control, whole linseed (10% linseed), conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) (2% protected CLA), and whole linseed+CLA (10% linseed and 2% protected CLA). Animals were slaughtered at 458±16.6 kg live weight and 11 months of age. Ageing was more significant than diet on most instrumental parameters. Meat from linseed enriched diets had greater drip loss (P ⩽0.001) and intramuscular fat (P ⩽0.01) than meat from animals fed CLA. Beef aged for 7 and 21 days had lower cooking losses (P ⩽0.01) and shear force (P ⩽0.001) than beef aged for 1 day. Lightness was affected only by display time. The addition of CLA in the diet increased hue and yellowness, whereas the inclusion of linseed decreased these values, as well as increased redness. Linseed in the diet decreased fat odour (P ⩽0.05), but increased beef (P ⩽0.01) and liver (P ⩽0.05) flavours. Meat aged for 21 days was significantly more rancid (P ⩽0.001), even under vacuum storage. Several organoleptic properties were improved with the inclusion of linseed in the diet, whereas they remained unaffected by the inclusion of CLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The meat from 60 commercial suckling males of five Spanish goat breeds ( n = 10 each) ( Moncaína [ MO], Pirenaica [ PI], Negra Serrana [ NS], Blanca Celtibérica [ BC] [all meat or double purpose] and Murciano- Granadina [ MG] [dairy purpose]) and one dairy sheep breed ( Churra [ CH]) was compared in laboratory-based ( n = 119) and home-based ( n = 70) consumer tests. In the laboratory, flavor ( P ≤ 0.01), tenderness ( P ≤ 0.001) and overall acceptability ( P ≤ 0.001) differed significantly among the breeds, and MO, NS, MG and CH had the highest overall acceptability. In the home-based test, tenderness ( P ≤ 0.01) and overall acceptability ( P ≤ 0.05), but not flavor, differed significantly among the breeds, and MO, BC, MG and CH had the highest overall acceptability. In conclusion, the two consumer test evaluated were adequate for evaluating meat acceptability from suckling small ruminants, having comparable results, although consumer preferences were slightly higher and signification levels slightly lower under home conditions than under laboratory conditions. Practical Applications Consumer acceptance is a big aim of any food sector. Meat is a complex product to be evaluated because of its intrinsic variability and because it needs to be cooked previously to be assessed. Comparisons with the same animals, in different circumstances: cut, type of cooking and temperature, condiments, ambiance, as it occurs in home tests or laboratory tests hardly exist. In this paper, the same results have been obtained in both tests with meat from small ruminants. This will undoubtedly favor the development of meat consumer tests in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]