April 7, 2025 • 36 mins
Dr. Lyda Garcia, Associate Professor and Extension Meat Specialist with The Ohio State University, shares her expertise on the science behind meat quality and how proper livestock management impacts the final product consumers enjoy. Quality means different things to different people - from marbling content and color to freshness and safety - but understanding the factors that influence it can help producers deliver better products.
• Three types of stress affect meat quality: physiological, psychological, and nutritional
• Bruising causes significant economic losses, especially in beef cattle and cull cows
• Dark cutters (from long-term stress) and PSE meat (from short-term stress) are major quality issues
• Show animals often experience more quality issues due to handling and environmental stress
• Home processors should implement food safety practices including three-bucket cleaning systems
• Use a 1:1 ratio of white vinegar and water as a final antimicrobial intervention
• Proper cooling and temperature control are essential for both quality and safety
• Common sense practices prevent cross-contamination during processing
• Food safety shouldn't be compromised, especially considering vulnerable populations
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resilience, the Center for Ag
Profitability out of theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Aloha and welcome to Livestock Bala'au, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders in Hawaii and the
US.
We are your hosts, meli Oshiroand Shannon Sand, and today we
are talking with Dr Lida Garcia,associate Professor and
Extension Meat Specialist withthe Ohio State University.
(00:51):
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, excited to talk a littlebit about what you do, and maybe
that's where we can start ifyou want to just share a little
bit of your background and yourcurrent position.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Sure Well, I am originally from Texas, South
Texas.
I grew up 40 miles east of theTexas-Mexico border.
My father was a Texas cowboy,you know, with a third grade
level education but with a PhDin life, and my mother was a
public school teacher for about26 years, and so all my
(01:26):
schooling, you know my education, is in Texas Went to a two-year
school, an ag school, ClarendonCollege, first on a full ride
to judge livestock who wouldhave thought that would have
started my career and then Itransferred to Texas Tech
University, an animal science,meat science, and then
transferred over to West TexasA&M University for an animal
(01:50):
science meat science master'sand then wrapped up down with
the Aggies at Texas A&M CollegeStation with a PhD in meat
science and then, and for somereason, I did a one-year postdoc
.
I guess I wasn't ready to quitegrow up.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I was going to say you must really like being home.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
And so I did a one-year postdoc at Texas Tech
University and then they hiredme on as a faculty just faculty
where I was there to helpincrease diversity, recruit, you
know, and of course from myneck of the woods I'm from South
Texas, so that's exactly whereI went to help increase their
(02:27):
numbers, in addition to teaching, but then also traveled with
our food safety, foodmicrobiology team to Mexico and
Central America to help maketheir meat supply safer.
And so I was there for aboutfour or five years and then came
to Ohio where I started out asan assistant professor of meat
(02:48):
science at the Ohio StateUniversity, and so, in addition
to that, I also serve as theextension meat specialist and
then, in addition, I also coach,coordinate a meat judging team
for undergraduate students.
Been there 10 years, I can'tbelieve that.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And I want to say too I also I met Dr Garcia through
Meat Quality.
Assurance is where we first metand yeah, so it's been.
It's been great, you know,having that connection and
person to talk to about meatquality.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So, lida, balancing production goals with quality is
a constant challenge for a lotof livestock producers, but just
for those.
Quality is a constant challengefor a lot of livestock
producers, but just for thosethat, because we do get a lot of
listeners that are kind of newto livestock production but
really want to get into it or apart of it.
But what is meat quality andhow exactly is it evaluated?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
When you grow or not grow up.
But when you go through apublic school system, like I did
, in that formal training that I, you know, I went through
through all my, through all mydegrees you learn that quality
has a lot to do with marblingespecially if you're talking
about beef, right?
Yeah.
Also appearance, such as colorand texture, and also tenderness
(04:00):
.
But, as, as I mentioned earlier, I did some work in Mexico and
Central America, and also what Idid mention was I also did some
work in Puerto Rico.
I learned that quality meanssomething different to everyone,
and that could mean freshness,that could mean color, that
could mean so much, right.
And so the first thing that Ioften share with my audience,
(04:23):
because if I'm talking to beefproducers, then they're likely
going to be talking aboutmarbling, they're going to be
talking about color and theywant a high quality product.
And then that's when I probethem like well, what does
quality mean to you?
What does that mean?
Some also include price, right,yeah, so that is one thing that
(04:44):
I've always encouraged myaudience is you know, if you're
going to be in this arena andyou're going to promote your
product, whatever that iswhether it's beef, pork, lamb,
goat, even poultry we need tounderstand what it means first.
But on a general level, atleast you know.
Just putting my associateprofessor had it on an extension
(05:06):
, meat specialist had on I wouldsay it's more of a, you know, a
product that tastes good,that's going to result in a, in
a positive eating experiencethat's also safe.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I like that, that including the safe aspect, but
also that culturally it could bedifferent in different places.
I had not thought about that.
I didn't mean judging growingup a thousand years ago now, but
I was just like.
I was like oh, that totallymakes sense, so yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, you can only imagine my eyebrow going up when
I'm down in Mexico and allthese other countries and I'm
trying to push the marblingaspect of it.
To push the marbling aspect ofit.
And when you deal with the,with the, with the population
that's poor, right, the povertyline, marbling means nothing.
Survival means more.
(05:56):
Oh yeah, you just want theprotein and want it to taste
halfway decent.
I would imagine to some extent,Freshness is what I learned.
They wanted it harvested thatmorning and they wanted it on
their plate that that afternoonor that evening evening right
and to them, that was quality.
Yeah, and that's what I'msaying that's the safety aspect
of things.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Sometimes is a higher at a higher valued in quality.
Right then then yeah it lookslike at that point in some areas
.
Yeah, so I know there's lots ofdifferent ways, I guess, for us
to look at quality now, but how, how is how is that evaluated
as sort of like on an industrystandard, right, and then
everything I think everydifferent species is going to.
(06:29):
We have different ways ofevaluating it, but do you want
to talk a little bit aboutwhat's evaluated as far as meat
quality on the industry and likeon the commercial sort of side
of things?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
So if I just use the US beef grading system, right?
where we either will use acamera to evaluate the factors
for a quality grade, and aquality grade in the United
States consists of a marblingscore and age and lean color
maturity.
Okay, and so, whether we'reusing a camera or an actual
(07:02):
human being from the USDAAgricultural Marketing Service
who serves as a grader, they'regoing to be looking for marbling
color, texture and thenskeletal maturity on that beef
carcass.
So we want a cherry red to abright cherry red, something
that looks very appealing, butof course that color can be
impacted by age, hence why weaccount for age.
(07:24):
But of course that color can beimpacted by age, hence why we
account for age.
And then, of course, the olderthe animal gets, then naturally
that meat product will betougher.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, and that's, I think, another leads us to a
bigger topic that I think wecould talk probably a lot about
right, those different factorsthat start to then impact meat
quality.
There's ones, I think, you knowwe can control and ones that we
can't control.
You want to talk about a littlebit about that?
We've talked before about thisin some of our workshops and
some of these impacts to meatquality, but not just the
(07:53):
impacts, but how important isthat economically, and not even
just not only commercialproducers.
It's not only economicallyimportant for commercial
producers but even our oursmaller, you know, producers, I
think will even have a biggerimpact right To them
economically because they mightbe on a smaller scale.
But so that's probably likefive questions in one, but
(08:14):
that's how we roll.
But maybe just talk about someof the impacts that we can have
in some factors that affect meatquality.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So so I think you're referring to the practices, or
the management practices whilethe animal's still alive.
So you know, there's one thingthat I tend to harp on, and this
is something a little differentthan what likely my colleagues
across the nation do I realizedabout six, seven years ago
(08:44):
through extension, just in asimple conversation with some
beef producers here in Ohio,that when it comes to quality,
you know, if we result in aquality defect known as dark,
firm and dry, or dark cutters,this is caused by long-term
stress or a pill, soft andexudative PSE.
(09:05):
As often, as it's referred to,that's caused by short-term
stress and elevated bodytemperatures.
People tend to turn to thehandling process right away.
It's as if that's like the onlycause to these quality defects.
And just through enoughconversations I realized, you
know, maybe I need to do abetter job explaining this,
(09:25):
because in my head it makesperfect sense, but to my
audience, you know, I think thisis where I was disconnecting.
And so when we're talking aboutmanagement practices, there are
actually three stressors that weneed to account for.
One, obviously, is aphysiological stress.
Right, this is where the mancan come in.
Man in general comes in andeither rough houses or gets them
(09:49):
excited and has them run more.
You know burning that energyand so forth but then you also
have them fighting, as, as Ioften share with with my
workshops and my programs.
You know how many of us havelooked at a certain person in in
our lifetime and alreadyrealized we didn't like them and
not even know who in the worldthey are.
Right, these animals are nodifferent.
(10:10):
They will look at each otherand then just start fighting.
Now they have more flexibilityto that than we have more
regulations when it comes tofighting, but that would be a
part of a physiological stress.
But another thing that we alsoneed to account for is what I
refer to as a psychologicalstress.
How many of us know people whostress when we turn on the
(10:32):
lights?
Yeah, and then how many of usknow people who thrive on stress
and I often will use this, usemy family as an example my
sister stresses on a turn of adime and whereas I thrive off
stress, I'm doing my best.
You know when I'm stressed out.
(10:53):
We have to remember that we'remammals, just like these food
animals are, and I'm referringto livestock right and poultry
and so we also need to accountfor the biological side of that
animal, of where we could bedoing everything right, and Mele
can attest to this.
I believe that we have somereally good people out there,
producers, who care, and whenthis is your livelihood, you're
(11:19):
going to do your best to makesure these animals are treated
and cared for properly, to makesure these animals are treated
and cared for properly.
So, and then, in addition tothe psychological stress, we
also have nutritional stress.
Um, you know, it's, it's.
It's one thing when you grow upin this arena and you're taught
by, by parents and grandparentswho have been there, done that,
(11:40):
been through the school of knox,and and also those who have
gone through that formaltraining, the education to
understand the roles of, or therole that a protein, a
carbohydrate and a fat play inan animal diet.
Once again, we as human beingsare no different.
So I often encourage myaudience and even our youth,
such as 4-H and FFA, with ouryouth agricultural programs.
(12:03):
Is, you know, put yourself inthe equation, because often you
know, like these collegestudents who are 19, 20, their
diet requirements are completelydifferent than mine, and as I
get older, my diet requirementschange.
But see, but at the end of theday.
It's all about maintaining thathealthy balance right, the
homeostasis and so forth.
And so I guess what I'm sayingis is you know, when it comes to
(12:26):
manage proper managementpractices, there are three
stressors that we should keep inmind which is going, which
should be the physiological side, the psychological side and the
nutritional side.
That, right, there will have alot to do with that end product,
and you know, and one thingthat we have to keep in mind is
once that animal goes throughthe processor and it's now up on
(12:51):
hanging on a rail, we can'tsend it back for our producers
to fix.
So then the processor is leftto figure out what do I do with
this next?
And still assuring that it's asafe product to release out into
that food chain.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Right, good point, and you know I want to share
that one of our producers.
I remember they had an incidentthat they didn't know what was
going on.
But they had a batch that camethrough and the meat was having.
They had a bunch of dark cutterscome through and when they
turned back to look, kind of youknow, trying to figure out what
was going on, they had a stormpass through about five, seven
(13:27):
days before these animals wentto market and they were in a
holding pasture and it was alike lightning, storm and
everything you know.
So those animals had gottenstressed from that and that's
what had led up to where theywere.
And you know, and we youprobably wouldn't have thought
about it, you know.
But then they started to lookback at what had happened and
thinking about that.
They started talking about itwith some of the folks that was
(13:49):
working with them, doing some oftheir sheer force testing, and
Turned it back to that waspretty much what it was.
So is there a point where, like, if something like that happens
, we know it's going to causethe animal stress, is there a
certain period of time that wecan sort of hold them and say
let's wait then to send them toslaughter?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
energy.
You know bovine, you knowespecially beef cattle.
They have over 600 individualindependent muscles, meaning
they work independently, andeach, each muscle holds on
average, about one percentglycogen, and glycogen is the
energy source that we utilizeand we rely on to produce energy
.
So if the animal you know likeI'll give an example like with
these large packers, some ofthem will stop receiving cattle
(14:42):
at about 3, 3.30, you know,maybe 3.45, and then just hold
them in the pens for the nextday, right or later on in the
day, and so forth.
Sometimes, if they're notrunning on a Saturday or Sunday
and cattle come in on a Friday,then they have to hold them over
until Monday.
That's what we call hold overcattle.
If a storm or a cold front orhail come through over the
(15:06):
weekend, then what happens thereis that that energy, that
glycogen that I just mentioned,has been utilized for energy and
to produce heat and all thisother stuff.
It's recommended that you justfeed them and obviously, if
glycogen is the energy, thenwe're looking at maybe some
carbohydrates, right?
The tricky part is knowingwhat's going on underneath that
(15:28):
hide, and so, at least here inthe United States cattle tend to
be, or when cattle are unloadedat a packing plant.
They tend to rest and I'mreferring more to the larger
scale packers than anything.
They are unloaded, they'replaced into a pen roughly 40, 45
(15:49):
minutes they rest.
They have full access to water.
They have time to calm down.
Then, when it's time, then theyare moved in a very calm
fashion at least what I've seenpersonally into that S chute to
enter into that packing plant.
Again, think about the human.
(16:09):
When we travel, we're either onbus or car or so forth.
We arrive to our location, oneof the first things we want to
do is just sit.
Yeah, it's no different.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Economically.
Now we talked about you knowand the impacts, but on an
economic scale, what are some ofthe, I think, biggest things
that are creating losses to someof our meat producers in the
state as far as in thecommercial end of things?
Speaker 4 (16:39):
meat producers in the state as far as in the
commercial end of things.
Well, the first thing thatcomes to mind is our bruises.
Bruises, you know, with ourcattle being a bit larger and
fed out longer, right, sothey're a bit bigger.
Our trailers haven't beenadjusted, but you know, there
was a study and at least this iswhat we use for beef.
Quality quality training is, um, you know, minor bruises and
(17:00):
minor could be about um as bigas a baseball, um, maybe a
softball, depends on depth.
You know, one of the questions II commonly receive is well, how
big is a bruise and how muchdoes it weigh?
Well, we can't really tell youthat, because sometimes it could
be, you know, a very deep,profound bruise, but it only
looks like maybe a quarterquarter size versus a football
(17:24):
type.
That's more shallow or whathave you.
But here's what I will tell you.
I don't have the numbers exact,but I do know that our industry
loses a lot of money to bruisesaround the hip area, right the
rump area.
Cold cows tend to be, know,have more bruising.
But then, if you think about ourelderly I'm going to go back to
humans again think about ourelderly, I mean they're more
(17:44):
prone to bruising, absolutely,um, you know, these cold cows
and the more advanced skeletal,um, you know, physiologically
advanced, are going to be morelike, likely due to, or more
susceptible to, bruising.
But, um, but, going back toyour question, millie, uh,
bruises are a problem yeah but Iwill say cows are huge too.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Now, when they call them they're, they're big girls.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
I was like so, and dairy as well.
I mean don't forget oh yeah, Imean that hip height it's.
I mean they're, they're big,yeah, and it's something you
know, that that's right in, thatcan be right in front of our,
of our faces, and we're just notcapturing what, um, what
exactly is happening.
I mean, you know, I grew up insouth texas working cattle with
(18:30):
my father and he would alwayssay you know, pay attention to
the animal, the animal will tellyou what's wrong, but you've
got to be paying attention.
My dad says the same thing.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's funny.
It must be an old ranger thing.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Well, you know there's a lot of common sense
involved a hundred percent thistype of work, and if you don't
have that common sense, then mypersonal opinion which means
nothing like yeah, is maybe weshouldn't be in this arena.
Then let's go find somethingthat's more black and white for
you but but you have to havecommon sense when it comes to
production agriculture.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Absolutely so.
We see, you know beef cattle.
I know we talk a lot aboutbruising, but are some of the
smaller ruminants or hogs moreprone to other complications and
impacts to the meat quality?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
So I can't say bruising is a problem, at least
with commercial swine right,because a lot of our large-scale
packers are verticallyintegrated.
You know, with lambs and goats,at least at the packing plant,
I've not seen it being a problem.
Now, if you're talking aboutquality defects, at least more
(19:33):
on the county levels with thesmaller processors that I've
seen not just in Ohio but inothers, there could be a good
chance of that PSE, the pale,soft and exudative in pork.
And you can.
It's more common to see that inshow hogs Bruising with lambs
in, you know could be, and thatcould just be with them,
(19:54):
handling them could be.
Some of them like to fight.
Let me tell you some of theseshow lambs that I've seen, they
do like to fight and so, um,here in the state of ohio I do
evaluate, I'll judge about 20county fair carcass shows um,
and if I do see bruising it's,it's not a big issue in pork or
(20:18):
lamb or goat, but periodicallywe will see it.
But I would say that if I hadto pick a certain species it
would be beef.
You know beef and dairy cullcows more than anything.
Cull.
How about that cull?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Is that just because I'm going to ask a really dumb
question?
So if it's wrong it's fine.
But is that potentially justbecause I think of like to take
a lamb to like production, or agoat or like even swine?
It's a much shorter time periodto finish than it is for cattle
.
So is it just that there's justmore chance because you've got
you know, anywhere from 16 to 24months for them to potentially
(20:54):
have something?
I'm just curious.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
I don't know it's just just to maybe but if, if we
think about what causes bruises, I mean that has to be a
physical impact, yeah, right, soso, yeah, I mean, the longer
that they live, I mean there'sobviously more of a chance for
them to acquire bruises, andthat maybe if the if the bruise
is profound enough and thosemuscle cells die off right, then
(21:17):
then that becomes a callus,which calluses are not as common
as they used to be.
So our industry has done andI'm referring to beef more than
anything Our industry has donesuch a great job, especially
through beef quality assurance,those educational programs and
transportation quality assuranceand so forth.
But I would say, you know, thebruising can happen at any time.
(21:39):
You know, I was down in Mexicoin 2019 or was it 2021,
regardless, and there was aplant that had their own feedlot
that they would just walk thecattle when they were ready out,
just to the plant, I mean, andit was about a mile, and I
noticed at the plant that therewas these bruises on the
(22:01):
quadricep which would be likeour thigh muscle, and I noticed
that there was just a continuousbruise and I kept wondering,
well, what's going on?
So I went over to the feedlotand just watched them move
cattle around and there was acertain turn from one pen where
cattle had to make a sharp turnto go into the alleyway and as
(22:24):
they were turning that curvelike that around that post they
were slipping.
There was something about thatarea that they just couldn't
hold on to and then I realizedthere was concrete right
underneath and it was shallow sothey couldn't grip anything as
they were pushing off and thatwas causing the bruising and it
(22:45):
just wasn't a dime size, we'retalking about a good baseball
size bruise.
I mean just think about thatleg extending in a certain way.
That's not natural, you know.
So that I mean it can happen atany point.
But yeah, I mean the longerthey live, the extended higher
chance of getting bruised.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
the longer they live, the they stand, a higher chance
of getting bruised.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Now you said with hogs PSC can be more common in
show hogs.
Why?
Why more commonly seen in showhogs?
Well, psc is is more, for youknow it's caused by short-term
stress and and elevated bodytemperatures, right?
So picture it, you know you.
You want you load an animalfrom its environment that it
knows well, take it to anestranged place such as a county
fair.
You have all these differentscents, all these sounds, people
(23:34):
fighting, music blaring, kidsscreaming or laughing or what
have you, and then all thesepeople wanting to come and pet
you, when you have no clue whothey are.
You know, know that all makes adifference and it can.
Then they're loaded onto atrailer and heading to the
processor.
You know there's a newenvironment there as well, and
depending on how they're handled, depending on who else is in
(23:54):
the pen with them, once again,whether they like each other or
not, you know it all matters andit all connects.
Now, psc is more commonly foundin pork and poultry, but that
doesn't mean we can't find it inbeef and lamb and goat.
That's just more common in porkand poultry.
And with PSC that's usuallycaused by short-term stress, so
(24:17):
usually that's minutes beforeslaughter.
So picture it, especiallybiologically, if the animal's
naturally stressed out.
Now I mean, think about you.
You know, when we first startedgiving talks, our body
temperatures increase and youhope you prayed that you
remember to put on thatdeodorant, right, it's just a
(24:38):
natural.
It's just a natural response.
So now you have the stress withelevated body temperatures.
Imagine what's happening, youknow, and and when it comes to
the meat, skeletal muscle, thateventually becomes meat, because
in the live animal it's, it'smuscle, but when rigor mortis
has occurred, we now have meat,that time from muscle to meet.
(24:58):
The conversion of muscle tomeat matters because the amount
of glycogen at time at slaughteris either going in and under
normal conditions it's that pHfrom 7.3 we wanted to drop
between 5.6 and a 5.8.
Right, that's under normalconditions.
If we stress that animal toohard or the animal is stressed,
(25:22):
how about that?
Like in the case of psc,they're going to burn through
that glycogen pretty fast andit's going to produce an
abundance amount of lactic acid.
And imagine just what what aciddoes in general.
So those proteins that areresponsible for holding on to
water, holding on to thestructure of muscle, and you
(25:43):
know they're going to bedenatured.
Hence why so?
Skeletal muscle consists of 75percent water.
Imagine if those proteins canno longer hold on to that water.
Guess what happens?
It's going to leach out, andwhat comes with the water is
going to be the, the globularprotein known as myoglo, and
that gives meat its red color.
(26:04):
That's going to be releasedwith the water, hence why you
see a certain pigment in thetray or in a package.
Right, that's just.
That's not blood, as somepeople, most people like to
refer to it.
It's actually myoglobin, andthat is a globular protein
responsible for giving meat itsred color.
So that's where the palenesscomes from.
(26:25):
And then, if we think about thepale soft, the soft is because
the texture is weakened.
Those proteins, thosestructural proteins responsible
for holding up the structure ofmeat, is denatured.
So now you have a soft textureand then exudation just means
water is leaching out, right?
Hence why it's referred to aspale, soft and exudated.
(26:48):
Yeah, I take my class.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yes, and Shannon yeah .
I'm not sure I could pass it,but it would be very interesting
to see.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Yeah, but it just it makes connections right to
everything really to explainwhat happens in there.
You know.
So we talked a lot about ourcommercial producers on the very
large scale in our, you know,in the processing units and
whatnot.
But we still have a lot offolks that are homesteaders or
backyard producers, right, andthat are either producing for
their own home or their smallfamilies, or even into farmers,
(27:22):
markets and things, and theymight have different challenges
and different goals because theymight be on a smaller scale.
But what are some key things Ithink we can think about?
If we're doing some home killand some home slaughter and you
know what's some things that weshould, they should consider,
you know, producers shouldconsider when they're doing
these and even in likeprocessing, right, because
(27:42):
there's probably certain keyaspects we have to think about
to make sure product stays safefor us to consume, and not just
the quality of it but the safety, as we said earlier.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Sure, and it's interesting that you're asking
me this, because I was justtelling some, some family
members, this week, and I was inTexas for my nephew's
graduation at Texas TechUniversity and this came up as a
conversation about homebutchering.
And so you know, the one thingthat I don't do is try to
dissuade people from doing this,because I grew up with it and I
(28:12):
completely understand why we dowhat we do.
But the one thing that I willshare that we didn't do growing
up, that I do do today withthose who want to go on farm and
process and I mean that's myjob is I don't tell them what to
do, I just kind of just leavethem some nuggets to think about
when it comes to the safety,like, for example, are you, are
(28:36):
you in street clothes whenyou're about to process?
No, well, you shouldn't be.
You know, I encourage eitherlike a like a plastic or rubber
apron or overalls.
Where you were, I mean, you'regoing to get dirty, no doubt,
but at least you could use awater hose to rinse off in
between rinsing Right.
(28:56):
The other thing is, um, eitherwashing or rinsing your knives
after so many strokes after,especially if you're going to do
a very.
If you're about to to, let'ssay, eviscerate right when
you're going to split the animalopen, you definitely want to
wash right after that.
Or if you're about to open upthe hide and your right hand is
(29:18):
deemed dirty in your left or,I'm sorry, your right hand is
deemed clean, your left hand oris deemed dirty because you're
holding the hide or the skin orwhat have you.
You never want to cross them.
Always use your clean hand forthe carcass, because it's the
carcass is sterile.
What's underneath is sterile,it's what's on the outside.
And now, once we start exposing, that's where we have to start
thinking.
We don't want to crosscontaminate the potable water.
(29:41):
No doubt, no doubt.
But and and some people may notappreciate what I'm going to say
next, but it's, it's reality Ibelieve in in the three bucket
system.
Three buckets, you know, one isfor with warm water with some
dish soap.
I like to use Dawn.
Dawn is a very.
It works great with fat Ifusing warm water, like a five
(30:04):
gallon bucket with Dawn and thena middle bucket of warm water
just to rinse, and then Ipersonally have an igloo, a five
gallon igloo of hot water, andif you don't have the
capabilities of boiling water onfarm or on site.
I've actually used burners thatI've used for um to fry a turkey
(30:26):
.
I'll use the burner to to heatup the water and then pour it
into a igloo.
But I also will buy some umsanitizers that you I mean just
tablets that you can buy atWalmart or Amazon and it tells
you how many tablets per gallon.
That the final step.
So sanitizing, when you're donewith everything.
(30:46):
So you've got the the the washbucket, you've got the rinse
bucket.
The rinse is where either youuse warm water or you could use
the hot water, but then have asanitizer bucket, right,
especially if you don't haveextra knives.
And, let's say, yours falls onthe floor and it's mixed with
whatever's on that ground youdefinitely want.
You don't want to knives and,let's say, yours falls on the
floor and it's mixed withwhatever's on that ground you
definitely want.
(31:07):
You don't want to rinse, youwant to wash.
I'm I'm a big fan of using uhlarge buckets or tubs to uh to
capture blood when we, when webleed them out.
If not, you will attract allthese other animals, and then
you have another problem,coyotes and so forth.
When it comes to the organs, youhave a place to hold them and
(31:30):
they just don't fall to theground.
As well thought about was thatfinal intervention step, right
before placing into the cooler.
And that is a mix, and that'smixing a one to one ratio of
acidic acid, which is just whitevinegar with a gallon of water.
(31:53):
That's it.
Put it in a gallon or twogallon sprayer, use that and
always start from the top andwork towards the bottom, because
you have gravity at play.
And I usually tell themmarinate it.
I I want to see a stream comingdown at the bottom and not just
a little mister like where youknow we're spraying what have
(32:14):
you?
Um, because that's going to beyour final intervention step.
And then it all depends on yourcooler.
Uh, you know, usually we don'tstart processing until the
internal temp reaches a minimumof 50 degrees internal
temperature.
Of course, the colder it is,the easier it's going to be to
cut, because that muscle or themeat is now firm and it'll be
(32:34):
easier to work with.
But you know, those are just thelittle steps, just keeping your
environment clean, these, youknow, rinsing.
In between, you can wear a cap,you don't need to wear a
hairnet like we do in our.
You know all these facilities,but keep your hair contained.
And and you know, and as far asattire, I mean, it's just
common sense.
It goes back to our little, ourconversation.
(32:55):
Shannon, it's just common sense.
Yeah, you're going to betouching things, finding a
plastic apron, rubber apron andrinse off in between, just
little things like that, and andand you know, I, I think back
to when we did it growing up andI, you know, it's a good thing,
my mother cooked the tar out ofeverything because we survived.
(33:16):
But what happens if you don'tright?
I mean, and so those are justlittle nuggets.
That that I'll, that I'll sharewith people.
But we have to remember that,when it comes to food safety,
it's not worth risking, it's notworth being lax or trying to
cut corners, because it's ouryouth and our elderly that we
have to really think about.
(33:36):
You cannot handle foodpoisoning as well as you and I
can.
That doesn't mean that we'renot going to suffer, because we
will hurt but our youth, ourkids, you know elderly, and to
me it's just not worth it.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, yeah definitely yeah, and I think some of the
tips are easy things that youcan do.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You know it's not a big investment, right To do
those practices so well and alot of times you have some of
that and I just think, like,like, so I too much information,
but I, I make sometimes I brewhome homemade beer and wine, and
so I was like I already havefood grade sanitizer, so I'm
just like it's, it's pretty easyto get a hold of some of that
stuff.
So, yeah, if you're processingyourself, depending on what
(34:16):
you're doing, yeah, yeah wow,okay, we could keep, just keep
going.
I know because I think there'slots of things to talk about
when it comes to meat qualityand stuff, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
There's anything else that you want to share with us,
Zyda, that you think we didn'ttalk about next to the end
(34:46):
product and when in doubt.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
You know I always encourage my audience and
students to reach out to yourextension programs.
You know this is what we'rehere for.
I mean we're here for to servecommunities as especially as
your land grant institution.
So, yeah, don't hesitate toreach out to your extension
program with questions and ifthey need to get a hold of me
extension program with questionsand if they need to get a hold
(35:07):
of me, you know I'm not hard tofind at the Ohio State
University Garcia meet science.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
You know there's very few of me's out there and we'll
be sure to share your contactinfo in our show notes as well,
so yeah, well thank you so muchfor coming on.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
We really appreciate it.
Thank you.
We hope our listeners foundthis informative and that it'll
be useful to them.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, Make sure to follow us on our social media
pages the Livestock Valhalla andLivestock Extension Group.
If you haven't already, Be sureto visit the UH CTAHR Extension
website and our YouTube channellisted in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
For additional information about this topic,
like Mele said, see the shownotes of the podcast and the
description box of our YouTubepage.
Thanks for listening to theLivestock of Ala'au.
Before we go, show some lovefor your favorite podcast by
leaving us a review wherever youlisten to this, and then stay
tuned for next month's episode.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Thanks again to our sponsors the Livestock Extension
Group of the University ofHawaii, manoa College of
Tropical Agriculture and HumanResilience, the Center for Ag.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Profitability of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Mahalo for listening, A hui hou.
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resilience, the Center for Ag
Profitability out of theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Aloha and welcome to Livestock Bala'au, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders in Hawaii and the
US.
We are your hosts, meli Oshiroand Shannon Sand, and today we
are talking with Dr Lida Garcia,associate Professor and
Extension Meat Specialist withthe Ohio State University.
(00:51):
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, excited to talk a littlebit about what you do, and maybe
that's where we can start ifyou want to just share a little
bit of your background and yourcurrent position.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Sure Well, I am originally from Texas, South
Texas.
I grew up 40 miles east of theTexas-Mexico border.
My father was a Texas cowboy,you know, with a third grade
level education but with a PhDin life, and my mother was a
public school teacher for about26 years, and so all my
(01:26):
schooling, you know my education, is in Texas Went to a two-year
school, an ag school, ClarendonCollege, first on a full ride
to judge livestock who wouldhave thought that would have
started my career and then Itransferred to Texas Tech
University, an animal science,meat science, and then
transferred over to West TexasA&M University for an animal
(01:50):
science meat science master'sand then wrapped up down with
the Aggies at Texas A&M CollegeStation with a PhD in meat
science and then, and for somereason, I did a one-year postdoc
.
I guess I wasn't ready to quitegrow up.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I was going to say you must really like being home.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
And so I did a one-year postdoc at Texas Tech
University and then they hiredme on as a faculty just faculty
where I was there to helpincrease diversity, recruit, you
know, and of course from myneck of the woods I'm from South
Texas, so that's exactly whereI went to help increase their
(02:27):
numbers, in addition to teaching, but then also traveled with
our food safety, foodmicrobiology team to Mexico and
Central America to help maketheir meat supply safer.
And so I was there for aboutfour or five years and then came
to Ohio where I started out asan assistant professor of meat
(02:48):
science at the Ohio StateUniversity, and so, in addition
to that, I also serve as theextension meat specialist and
then, in addition, I also coach,coordinate a meat judging team
for undergraduate students.
Been there 10 years, I can'tbelieve that.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
And I want to say too I also I met Dr Garcia through
Meat Quality.
Assurance is where we first metand yeah, so it's been.
It's been great, you know,having that connection and
person to talk to about meatquality.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So, lida, balancing production goals with quality is
a constant challenge for a lotof livestock producers, but just
for those.
Quality is a constant challengefor a lot of livestock
producers, but just for thosethat, because we do get a lot of
listeners that are kind of newto livestock production but
really want to get into it or apart of it.
But what is meat quality andhow exactly is it evaluated?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
When you grow or not grow up.
But when you go through apublic school system, like I did
, in that formal training that I, you know, I went through
through all my, through all mydegrees you learn that quality
has a lot to do with marblingespecially if you're talking
about beef, right?
Yeah.
Also appearance, such as colorand texture, and also tenderness
(04:00):
.
But, as, as I mentioned earlier, I did some work in Mexico and
Central America, and also what Idid mention was I also did some
work in Puerto Rico.
I learned that quality meanssomething different to everyone,
and that could mean freshness,that could mean color, that
could mean so much, right.
And so the first thing that Ioften share with my audience,
(04:23):
because if I'm talking to beefproducers, then they're likely
going to be talking aboutmarbling, they're going to be
talking about color and theywant a high quality product.
And then that's when I probethem like well, what does
quality mean to you?
What does that mean?
Some also include price, right,yeah, so that is one thing that
(04:44):
I've always encouraged myaudience is you know, if you're
going to be in this arena andyou're going to promote your
product, whatever that iswhether it's beef, pork, lamb,
goat, even poultry we need tounderstand what it means first.
But on a general level, atleast you know.
Just putting my associateprofessor had it on an extension
(05:06):
, meat specialist had on I wouldsay it's more of a, you know, a
product that tastes good,that's going to result in a, in
a positive eating experiencethat's also safe.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
I like that, that including the safe aspect, but
also that culturally it could bedifferent in different places.
I had not thought about that.
I didn't mean judging growingup a thousand years ago now, but
I was just like.
I was like oh, that totallymakes sense, so yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, you can only imagine my eyebrow going up when
I'm down in Mexico and allthese other countries and I'm
trying to push the marblingaspect of it.
To push the marbling aspect ofit.
And when you deal with the,with the, with the population
that's poor, right, the povertyline, marbling means nothing.
Survival means more.
(05:56):
Oh yeah, you just want theprotein and want it to taste
halfway decent.
I would imagine to some extent,Freshness is what I learned.
They wanted it harvested thatmorning and they wanted it on
their plate that that afternoonor that evening evening right
and to them, that was quality.
Yeah, and that's what I'msaying that's the safety aspect
of things.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Sometimes is a higher at a higher valued in quality.
Right then then yeah it lookslike at that point in some areas
.
Yeah, so I know there's lots ofdifferent ways, I guess, for us
to look at quality now, but how, how is how is that evaluated
as sort of like on an industrystandard, right, and then
everything I think everydifferent species is going to.
(06:29):
We have different ways ofevaluating it, but do you want
to talk a little bit aboutwhat's evaluated as far as meat
quality on the industry and likeon the commercial sort of side
of things?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
So if I just use the US beef grading system, right?
where we either will use acamera to evaluate the factors
for a quality grade, and aquality grade in the United
States consists of a marblingscore and age and lean color
maturity.
Okay, and so, whether we'reusing a camera or an actual
(07:02):
human being from the USDAAgricultural Marketing Service
who serves as a grader, they'regoing to be looking for marbling
color, texture and thenskeletal maturity on that beef
carcass.
So we want a cherry red to abright cherry red, something
that looks very appealing, butof course that color can be
impacted by age, hence why weaccount for age.
(07:24):
But of course that color can beimpacted by age, hence why we
account for age.
And then, of course, the olderthe animal gets, then naturally
that meat product will betougher.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, and that's, I think, another leads us to a
bigger topic that I think wecould talk probably a lot about
right, those different factorsthat start to then impact meat
quality.
There's ones, I think, you knowwe can control and ones that we
can't control.
You want to talk about a littlebit about that?
We've talked before about thisin some of our workshops and
some of these impacts to meatquality, but not just the
(07:53):
impacts, but how important isthat economically, and not even
just not only commercialproducers.
It's not only economicallyimportant for commercial
producers but even our oursmaller, you know, producers, I
think will even have a biggerimpact right To them
economically because they mightbe on a smaller scale.
But so that's probably likefive questions in one, but
(08:14):
that's how we roll.
But maybe just talk about someof the impacts that we can have
in some factors that affect meatquality.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
So so I think you're referring to the practices, or
the management practices whilethe animal's still alive.
So you know, there's one thingthat I tend to harp on, and this
is something a little differentthan what likely my colleagues
across the nation do I realizedabout six, seven years ago
(08:44):
through extension, just in asimple conversation with some
beef producers here in Ohio,that when it comes to quality,
you know, if we result in aquality defect known as dark,
firm and dry, or dark cutters,this is caused by long-term
stress or a pill, soft andexudative PSE.
(09:05):
As often, as it's referred to,that's caused by short-term
stress and elevated bodytemperatures.
People tend to turn to thehandling process right away.
It's as if that's like the onlycause to these quality defects.
And just through enoughconversations I realized, you
know, maybe I need to do abetter job explaining this,
(09:25):
because in my head it makesperfect sense, but to my
audience, you know, I think thisis where I was disconnecting.
And so when we're talking aboutmanagement practices, there are
actually three stressors that weneed to account for.
One, obviously, is aphysiological stress.
Right, this is where the mancan come in.
Man in general comes in andeither rough houses or gets them
(09:49):
excited and has them run more.
You know burning that energyand so forth but then you also
have them fighting, as, as Ioften share with with my
workshops and my programs.
You know how many of us havelooked at a certain person in in
our lifetime and alreadyrealized we didn't like them and
not even know who in the worldthey are.
Right, these animals are nodifferent.
(10:10):
They will look at each otherand then just start fighting.
Now they have more flexibilityto that than we have more
regulations when it comes tofighting, but that would be a
part of a physiological stress.
But another thing that we alsoneed to account for is what I
refer to as a psychologicalstress.
How many of us know people whostress when we turn on the
(10:32):
lights?
Yeah, and then how many of usknow people who thrive on stress
and I often will use this, usemy family as an example my
sister stresses on a turn of adime and whereas I thrive off
stress, I'm doing my best.
You know when I'm stressed out.
(10:53):
We have to remember that we'remammals, just like these food
animals are, and I'm referringto livestock right and poultry
and so we also need to accountfor the biological side of that
animal, of where we could bedoing everything right, and Mele
can attest to this.
I believe that we have somereally good people out there,
producers, who care, and whenthis is your livelihood, you're
(11:19):
going to do your best to makesure these animals are treated
and cared for properly, to makesure these animals are treated
and cared for properly.
So, and then, in addition tothe psychological stress, we
also have nutritional stress.
Um, you know, it's, it's.
It's one thing when you grow upin this arena and you're taught
by, by parents and grandparentswho have been there, done that,
(11:40):
been through the school of knox,and and also those who have
gone through that formaltraining, the education to
understand the roles of, or therole that a protein, a
carbohydrate and a fat play inan animal diet.
Once again, we as human beingsare no different.
So I often encourage myaudience and even our youth,
such as 4-H and FFA, with ouryouth agricultural programs.
(12:03):
Is, you know, put yourself inthe equation, because often you
know, like these collegestudents who are 19, 20, their
diet requirements are completelydifferent than mine, and as I
get older, my diet requirementschange.
But see, but at the end of theday.
It's all about maintaining thathealthy balance right, the
homeostasis and so forth.
And so I guess what I'm sayingis is you know, when it comes to
(12:26):
manage proper managementpractices, there are three
stressors that we should keep inmind which is going, which
should be the physiological side, the psychological side and the
nutritional side.
That, right, there will have alot to do with that end product,
and you know, and one thingthat we have to keep in mind is
once that animal goes throughthe processor and it's now up on
(12:51):
hanging on a rail, we can'tsend it back for our producers
to fix.
So then the processor is leftto figure out what do I do with
this next?
And still assuring that it's asafe product to release out into
that food chain.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Right, good point, and you know I want to share
that one of our producers.
I remember they had an incidentthat they didn't know what was
going on.
But they had a batch that camethrough and the meat was having.
They had a bunch of dark cutterscome through and when they
turned back to look, kind of youknow, trying to figure out what
was going on, they had a stormpass through about five, seven
(13:27):
days before these animals wentto market and they were in a
holding pasture and it was alike lightning, storm and
everything you know.
So those animals had gottenstressed from that and that's
what had led up to where theywere.
And you know, and we youprobably wouldn't have thought
about it, you know.
But then they started to lookback at what had happened and
thinking about that.
They started talking about itwith some of the folks that was
(13:49):
working with them, doing some oftheir sheer force testing, and
Turned it back to that waspretty much what it was.
So is there a point where, like, if something like that happens
, we know it's going to causethe animal stress, is there a
certain period of time that wecan sort of hold them and say
let's wait then to send them toslaughter?
Speaker 4 (14:19):
energy.
You know bovine, you knowespecially beef cattle.
They have over 600 individualindependent muscles, meaning
they work independently, andeach, each muscle holds on
average, about one percentglycogen, and glycogen is the
energy source that we utilizeand we rely on to produce energy
.
So if the animal you know likeI'll give an example like with
these large packers, some ofthem will stop receiving cattle
(14:42):
at about 3, 3.30, you know,maybe 3.45, and then just hold
them in the pens for the nextday, right or later on in the
day, and so forth.
Sometimes, if they're notrunning on a Saturday or Sunday
and cattle come in on a Friday,then they have to hold them over
until Monday.
That's what we call hold overcattle.
If a storm or a cold front orhail come through over the
(15:06):
weekend, then what happens thereis that that energy, that
glycogen that I just mentioned,has been utilized for energy and
to produce heat and all thisother stuff.
It's recommended that you justfeed them and obviously, if
glycogen is the energy, thenwe're looking at maybe some
carbohydrates, right?
The tricky part is knowingwhat's going on underneath that
(15:28):
hide, and so, at least here inthe United States cattle tend to
be, or when cattle are unloadedat a packing plant.
They tend to rest and I'mreferring more to the larger
scale packers than anything.
They are unloaded, they'replaced into a pen roughly 40, 45
(15:49):
minutes they rest.
They have full access to water.
They have time to calm down.
Then, when it's time, then theyare moved in a very calm
fashion at least what I've seenpersonally into that S chute to
enter into that packing plant.
Again, think about the human.
(16:09):
When we travel, we're either onbus or car or so forth.
We arrive to our location, oneof the first things we want to
do is just sit.
Yeah, it's no different.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Economically.
Now we talked about you knowand the impacts, but on an
economic scale, what are some ofthe, I think, biggest things
that are creating losses to someof our meat producers in the
state as far as in thecommercial end of things?
Speaker 4 (16:39):
meat producers in the state as far as in the
commercial end of things.
Well, the first thing thatcomes to mind is our bruises.
Bruises, you know, with ourcattle being a bit larger and
fed out longer, right, sothey're a bit bigger.
Our trailers haven't beenadjusted, but you know, there
was a study and at least this iswhat we use for beef.
Quality quality training is, um, you know, minor bruises and
(17:00):
minor could be about um as bigas a baseball, um, maybe a
softball, depends on depth.
You know, one of the questions II commonly receive is well, how
big is a bruise and how muchdoes it weigh?
Well, we can't really tell youthat, because sometimes it could
be, you know, a very deep,profound bruise, but it only
looks like maybe a quarterquarter size versus a football
(17:24):
type.
That's more shallow or whathave you.
But here's what I will tell you.
I don't have the numbers exact,but I do know that our industry
loses a lot of money to bruisesaround the hip area, right the
rump area.
Cold cows tend to be, know,have more bruising.
But then, if you think about ourelderly I'm going to go back to
humans again think about ourelderly, I mean they're more
(17:44):
prone to bruising, absolutely,um, you know, these cold cows
and the more advanced skeletal,um, you know, physiologically
advanced, are going to be morelike, likely due to, or more
susceptible to, bruising.
But, um, but, going back toyour question, millie, uh,
bruises are a problem yeah but Iwill say cows are huge too.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Now, when they call them they're, they're big girls.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
I was like so, and dairy as well.
I mean don't forget oh yeah, Imean that hip height it's.
I mean they're, they're big,yeah, and it's something you
know, that that's right in, thatcan be right in front of our,
of our faces, and we're just notcapturing what, um, what
exactly is happening.
I mean, you know, I grew up insouth texas working cattle with
(18:30):
my father and he would alwayssay you know, pay attention to
the animal, the animal will tellyou what's wrong, but you've
got to be paying attention.
My dad says the same thing.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's funny.
It must be an old ranger thing.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Well, you know there's a lot of common sense
involved a hundred percent thistype of work, and if you don't
have that common sense, then mypersonal opinion which means
nothing like yeah, is maybe weshouldn't be in this arena.
Then let's go find somethingthat's more black and white for
you but but you have to havecommon sense when it comes to
production agriculture.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Absolutely so.
We see, you know beef cattle.
I know we talk a lot aboutbruising, but are some of the
smaller ruminants or hogs moreprone to other complications and
impacts to the meat quality?
Speaker 4 (19:11):
So I can't say bruising is a problem, at least
with commercial swine right,because a lot of our large-scale
packers are verticallyintegrated.
You know, with lambs and goats,at least at the packing plant,
I've not seen it being a problem.
Now, if you're talking aboutquality defects, at least more
(19:33):
on the county levels with thesmaller processors that I've
seen not just in Ohio but inothers, there could be a good
chance of that PSE, the pale,soft and exudative in pork.
And you can.
It's more common to see that inshow hogs Bruising with lambs
in, you know could be, and thatcould just be with them,
(19:54):
handling them could be.
Some of them like to fight.
Let me tell you some of theseshow lambs that I've seen, they
do like to fight and so, um,here in the state of ohio I do
evaluate, I'll judge about 20county fair carcass shows um,
and if I do see bruising it's,it's not a big issue in pork or
(20:18):
lamb or goat, but periodicallywe will see it.
But I would say that if I hadto pick a certain species it
would be beef.
You know beef and dairy cullcows more than anything.
Cull.
How about that cull?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Is that just because I'm going to ask a really dumb
question?
So if it's wrong it's fine.
But is that potentially justbecause I think of like to take
a lamb to like production, or agoat or like even swine?
It's a much shorter time periodto finish than it is for cattle
.
So is it just that there's justmore chance because you've got
you know, anywhere from 16 to 24months for them to potentially
(20:54):
have something?
I'm just curious.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
I don't know it's just just to maybe but if, if we
think about what causes bruises, I mean that has to be a
physical impact, yeah, right, soso, yeah, I mean, the longer
that they live, I mean there'sobviously more of a chance for
them to acquire bruises, andthat maybe if the if the bruise
is profound enough and thosemuscle cells die off right, then
(21:17):
then that becomes a callus,which calluses are not as common
as they used to be.
So our industry has done andI'm referring to beef more than
anything Our industry has donesuch a great job, especially
through beef quality assurance,those educational programs and
transportation quality assuranceand so forth.
But I would say, you know, thebruising can happen at any time.
(21:39):
You know, I was down in Mexicoin 2019 or was it 2021,
regardless, and there was aplant that had their own feedlot
that they would just walk thecattle when they were ready out,
just to the plant, I mean, andit was about a mile, and I
noticed at the plant that therewas these bruises on the
(22:01):
quadricep which would be likeour thigh muscle, and I noticed
that there was just a continuousbruise and I kept wondering,
well, what's going on?
So I went over to the feedlotand just watched them move
cattle around and there was acertain turn from one pen where
cattle had to make a sharp turnto go into the alleyway and as
(22:24):
they were turning that curvelike that around that post they
were slipping.
There was something about thatarea that they just couldn't
hold on to and then I realizedthere was concrete right
underneath and it was shallow sothey couldn't grip anything as
they were pushing off and thatwas causing the bruising and it
(22:45):
just wasn't a dime size, we'retalking about a good baseball
size bruise.
I mean just think about thatleg extending in a certain way.
That's not natural, you know.
So that I mean it can happen atany point.
But yeah, I mean the longerthey live, the extended higher
chance of getting bruised.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
the longer they live, the they stand, a higher chance
of getting bruised.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
Now you said with hogs PSC can be more common in
show hogs.
Why?
Why more commonly seen in showhogs?
Well, psc is is more, for youknow it's caused by short-term
stress and and elevated bodytemperatures, right?
So picture it, you know you.
You want you load an animalfrom its environment that it
knows well, take it to anestranged place such as a county
fair.
You have all these differentscents, all these sounds, people
(23:34):
fighting, music blaring, kidsscreaming or laughing or what
have you, and then all thesepeople wanting to come and pet
you, when you have no clue whothey are.
You know, know that all makes adifference and it can.
Then they're loaded onto atrailer and heading to the
processor.
You know there's a newenvironment there as well, and
depending on how they're handled, depending on who else is in
(23:54):
the pen with them, once again,whether they like each other or
not, you know it all matters andit all connects.
Now, psc is more commonly foundin pork and poultry, but that
doesn't mean we can't find it inbeef and lamb and goat.
That's just more common in porkand poultry.
And with PSC that's usuallycaused by short-term stress, so
(24:17):
usually that's minutes beforeslaughter.
So picture it, especiallybiologically, if the animal's
naturally stressed out.
Now I mean, think about you.
You know, when we first startedgiving talks, our body
temperatures increase and youhope you prayed that you
remember to put on thatdeodorant, right, it's just a
(24:38):
natural.
It's just a natural response.
So now you have the stress withelevated body temperatures.
Imagine what's happening, youknow, and and when it comes to
the meat, skeletal muscle, thateventually becomes meat, because
in the live animal it's, it'smuscle, but when rigor mortis
has occurred, we now have meat,that time from muscle to meet.
(24:58):
The conversion of muscle tomeat matters because the amount
of glycogen at time at slaughteris either going in and under
normal conditions it's that pHfrom 7.3 we wanted to drop
between 5.6 and a 5.8.
Right, that's under normalconditions.
If we stress that animal toohard or the animal is stressed,
(25:22):
how about that?
Like in the case of psc,they're going to burn through
that glycogen pretty fast andit's going to produce an
abundance amount of lactic acid.
And imagine just what what aciddoes in general.
So those proteins that areresponsible for holding on to
water, holding on to thestructure of muscle, and you
(25:43):
know they're going to bedenatured.
Hence why so?
Skeletal muscle consists of 75percent water.
Imagine if those proteins canno longer hold on to that water.
Guess what happens?
It's going to leach out, andwhat comes with the water is
going to be the, the globularprotein known as myoglo, and
that gives meat its red color.
(26:04):
That's going to be releasedwith the water, hence why you
see a certain pigment in thetray or in a package.
Right, that's just.
That's not blood, as somepeople, most people like to
refer to it.
It's actually myoglobin, andthat is a globular protein
responsible for giving meat itsred color.
So that's where the palenesscomes from.
(26:25):
And then, if we think about thepale soft, the soft is because
the texture is weakened.
Those proteins, thosestructural proteins responsible
for holding up the structure ofmeat, is denatured.
So now you have a soft textureand then exudation just means
water is leaching out, right?
Hence why it's referred to aspale, soft and exudated.
(26:48):
Yeah, I take my class.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yes, and Shannon yeah .
I'm not sure I could pass it,but it would be very interesting
to see.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Yeah, but it just it makes connections right to
everything really to explainwhat happens in there.
You know.
So we talked a lot about ourcommercial producers on the very
large scale in our, you know,in the processing units and
whatnot.
But we still have a lot offolks that are homesteaders or
backyard producers, right, andthat are either producing for
their own home or their smallfamilies, or even into farmers,
(27:22):
markets and things, and theymight have different challenges
and different goals because theymight be on a smaller scale.
But what are some key things Ithink we can think about?
If we're doing some home killand some home slaughter and you
know what's some things that weshould, they should consider,
you know, producers shouldconsider when they're doing
these and even in likeprocessing, right, because
(27:42):
there's probably certain keyaspects we have to think about
to make sure product stays safefor us to consume, and not just
the quality of it but the safety, as we said earlier.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Sure, and it's interesting that you're asking
me this, because I was justtelling some, some family
members, this week, and I was inTexas for my nephew's
graduation at Texas TechUniversity and this came up as a
conversation about homebutchering.
And so you know, the one thingthat I don't do is try to
dissuade people from doing this,because I grew up with it and I
(28:12):
completely understand why we dowhat we do.
But the one thing that I willshare that we didn't do growing
up, that I do do today withthose who want to go on farm and
process and I mean that's myjob is I don't tell them what to
do, I just kind of just leavethem some nuggets to think about
when it comes to the safety,like, for example, are you, are
(28:36):
you in street clothes whenyou're about to process?
No, well, you shouldn't be.
You know, I encourage eitherlike a like a plastic or rubber
apron or overalls.
Where you were, I mean, you'regoing to get dirty, no doubt,
but at least you could use awater hose to rinse off in
between rinsing Right.
(28:56):
The other thing is, um, eitherwashing or rinsing your knives
after so many strokes after,especially if you're going to do
a very.
If you're about to to, let'ssay, eviscerate right when
you're going to split the animalopen, you definitely want to
wash right after that.
Or if you're about to open upthe hide and your right hand is
(29:18):
deemed dirty in your left or,I'm sorry, your right hand is
deemed clean, your left hand oris deemed dirty because you're
holding the hide or the skin orwhat have you.
You never want to cross them.
Always use your clean hand forthe carcass, because it's the
carcass is sterile.
What's underneath is sterile,it's what's on the outside.
And now, once we start exposing, that's where we have to start
thinking.
We don't want to crosscontaminate the potable water.
(29:41):
No doubt, no doubt.
But and and some people may notappreciate what I'm going to say
next, but it's, it's reality Ibelieve in in the three bucket
system.
Three buckets, you know, one isfor with warm water with some
dish soap.
I like to use Dawn.
Dawn is a very.
It works great with fat Ifusing warm water, like a five
(30:04):
gallon bucket with Dawn and thena middle bucket of warm water
just to rinse, and then Ipersonally have an igloo, a five
gallon igloo of hot water, andif you don't have the
capabilities of boiling water onfarm or on site.
I've actually used burners thatI've used for um to fry a turkey
(30:26):
.
I'll use the burner to to heatup the water and then pour it
into a igloo.
But I also will buy some umsanitizers that you I mean just
tablets that you can buy atWalmart or Amazon and it tells
you how many tablets per gallon.
That the final step.
So sanitizing, when you're donewith everything.
(30:46):
So you've got the the the washbucket, you've got the rinse
bucket.
The rinse is where either youuse warm water or you could use
the hot water, but then have asanitizer bucket, right,
especially if you don't haveextra knives.
And, let's say, yours falls onthe floor and it's mixed with
whatever's on that ground youdefinitely want.
You don't want to knives and,let's say, yours falls on the
floor and it's mixed withwhatever's on that ground you
definitely want.
(31:07):
You don't want to rinse, youwant to wash.
I'm I'm a big fan of using uhlarge buckets or tubs to uh to
capture blood when we, when webleed them out.
If not, you will attract allthese other animals, and then
you have another problem,coyotes and so forth.
When it comes to the organs, youhave a place to hold them and
(31:30):
they just don't fall to theground.
As well thought about was thatfinal intervention step, right
before placing into the cooler.
And that is a mix, and that'smixing a one to one ratio of
acidic acid, which is just whitevinegar with a gallon of water.
(31:53):
That's it.
Put it in a gallon or twogallon sprayer, use that and
always start from the top andwork towards the bottom, because
you have gravity at play.
And I usually tell themmarinate it.
I I want to see a stream comingdown at the bottom and not just
a little mister like where youknow we're spraying what have
(32:14):
you?
Um, because that's going to beyour final intervention step.
And then it all depends on yourcooler.
Uh, you know, usually we don'tstart processing until the
internal temp reaches a minimumof 50 degrees internal
temperature.
Of course, the colder it is,the easier it's going to be to
cut, because that muscle or themeat is now firm and it'll be
(32:34):
easier to work with.
But you know, those are just thelittle steps, just keeping your
environment clean, these, youknow, rinsing.
In between, you can wear a cap,you don't need to wear a
hairnet like we do in our.
You know all these facilities,but keep your hair contained.
And and you know, and as far asattire, I mean, it's just
common sense.
It goes back to our little, ourconversation.
(32:55):
Shannon, it's just common sense.
Yeah, you're going to betouching things, finding a
plastic apron, rubber apron andrinse off in between, just
little things like that, and andand you know, I, I think back
to when we did it growing up andI, you know, it's a good thing,
my mother cooked the tar out ofeverything because we survived.
(33:16):
But what happens if you don'tright?
I mean, and so those are justlittle nuggets.
That that I'll, that I'll sharewith people.
But we have to remember that,when it comes to food safety,
it's not worth risking, it's notworth being lax or trying to
cut corners, because it's ouryouth and our elderly that we
have to really think about.
(33:36):
You cannot handle foodpoisoning as well as you and I
can.
That doesn't mean that we'renot going to suffer, because we
will hurt but our youth, ourkids, you know elderly, and to
me it's just not worth it.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, yeah definitely yeah, and I think some of the
tips are easy things that youcan do.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You know it's not a big investment, right To do
those practices so well and alot of times you have some of
that and I just think, like,like, so I too much information,
but I, I make sometimes I brewhome homemade beer and wine, and
so I was like I already havefood grade sanitizer, so I'm
just like it's, it's pretty easyto get a hold of some of that
stuff.
So, yeah, if you're processingyourself, depending on what
(34:16):
you're doing, yeah, yeah wow,okay, we could keep, just keep
going.
I know because I think there'slots of things to talk about
when it comes to meat qualityand stuff, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
There's anything else that you want to share with us,
Zyda, that you think we didn'ttalk about next to the end
(34:46):
product and when in doubt.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
You know I always encourage my audience and
students to reach out to yourextension programs.
You know this is what we'rehere for.
I mean we're here for to servecommunities as especially as
your land grant institution.
So, yeah, don't hesitate toreach out to your extension
program with questions and ifthey need to get a hold of me
extension program with questionsand if they need to get a hold
(35:07):
of me, you know I'm not hard tofind at the Ohio State
University Garcia meet science.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
You know there's very few of me's out there and we'll
be sure to share your contactinfo in our show notes as well,
so yeah, well thank you so muchfor coming on.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
We really appreciate it.
Thank you.
We hope our listeners foundthis informative and that it'll
be useful to them.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, Make sure to follow us on our social media
pages the Livestock Valhalla andLivestock Extension Group.
If you haven't already, Be sureto visit the UH CTAHR Extension
website and our YouTube channellisted in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
For additional information about this topic,
like Mele said, see the shownotes of the podcast and the
description box of our YouTubepage.
Thanks for listening to theLivestock of Ala'au.
Before we go, show some lovefor your favorite podcast by
leaving us a review wherever youlisten to this, and then stay
tuned for next month's episode.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Thanks again to our sponsors the Livestock Extension
Group of the University ofHawaii, manoa College of
Tropical Agriculture and HumanResilience, the Center for Ag.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Profitability of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Mahalo for listening, A hui hou.
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