1. Introduction
2. Growth and Carcass Quality
3. Meat Quality
Meat is an important source of nutrients for the human diet. However, its composition varies across species and breeds, due to many factors of genetic and environmental origin. In general, data show that the chemical composition of the buffalo meat is roughly similar to that of the bovine meat. Buffalo meat is widely recognized to be poor in fat, which is confirmed by literature reports, with values varying approximately between 1 and 4 g/100g of meat. Moderate levels of cholesterol have been reported for buffalo meat, with most of the values around 50-60 mg/100g. The AI and TI indices, which synthesize the effect that single fatty acids can have in increasing the risk of coronary heart diseases, are quite low in comparison to the values reported for several foods. The literature data agree that meat from buffalo is richer in iron compared to the amount (1.0-2.0 mg/100 g) reported for different cuts of beef, which makes it more valuable from the nutritional point of view.
As for the technological properties, most of the values reported for the pH of buffalo meat are within the range typical for animals subjected to proper handling, a necessary condition for preventing possible negative effects on the meat quality. As the preferred colour of fresh meat is bright red, it is the darker colour usually displayed by buffalo meat compared to beef that contributes to the negative perception of its quality, because darker meat is often associated with a less fresh product, or derived from old animals, and so of lower eating quality. It has been demonstrated that the darker colour of buffalo meat depends on the myoglobin content (0.393 ± 0.005 g/100 g of tissue) and consequently on metmyoglobin. Ageing is confirmed as the most important factor that influences the meat tenderness, independently from other factors, including sex, age, breed.
The sensory quality of a product is a set of characteristics perceived by the senses, and it is the main determinant of its acceptance by the consumers. Being based on human perceptions, the sensory analysis provides information not provided by the instrumental analyses. As shown by the range of variation of the considered attributes, the sensory quality of the buffalo meat is quite variable, but this is not surprising on the basis of the many affecting factors. For most of the traits the minimum values are quite low, indicating a poor perceived quality, but, on the other hand, the highest scores of the range are often close to the best extreme of the scale, thus proving that the buffalo meat can reach a satisfactory organoleptic quality, similar if not even superior to that of beef.