PART IV.
MEAT, MILK, AND BUTTER.
SECTION I.
MEAT.
No one ought to feel a greater interest in the subject of meat in all its branches than the stock feeder. Just in proportion as this kind of food is agreeable to the taste, easily digestible, and rich in nutriment, will the demand for it increase. The quality of meat is, in fact, a primary consideration with the producer of that article; and he whose beef and mutton are the most tender and the best flavored will make the most profit.
Quality of Meat.—The flesh of herbivorous animals is composed of muscular and adipose (fatty) tissues. The muscles consist of bundles of elastic fibres (fibrine), enclosed in an albuminous tissue formed of little vessels, termed cells, and intimately commingled with water, and a mixture of albuminous, fatty, and saline matters. The leanest flesh (muscles) contains fat, but the latter accumulates in certain parts of the body—often to such an extent as to seriously interfere with the functions of life. The red color of flesh is due to a rather large proportion of blood, which it contains in minute vessels; and the slight acidity of its juice is owing to the presence of inosinic acid, and probably of several other acids. The agreeable odour of meat, when it is subjected to the process of cooking, is developed from a complex substance termed osmazome.[!--22--][22] This constituent varies in nature and quantity in the different animals—hence the variety in flavor and odour of their flesh—and its amount increases with the age of the animal. The albumen of the muscles, and their fatty and saline constituents, are digestible; but it is generally believed that the elastic fibres, and the horny cellular tissue which binds them into bundles, are not assimilable. It is more certain that the crystalline substances found in flesh, such as, for example, kreatine, are incapable of ministering to the nutrition of animals.
The composition of flesh varies very much—that of a very obese pig containing more than half its weight of fat, whilst in some specimens of "jerked beef," imported from Monte Video, scarcely 5 per cent. of that substance was found. The flesh of a fat ox has on an average the following composition:—
| Per cent. | |
|---|---|
| Water | 45 |
| Fatty substances | 35 |
| Lean flesh, or muscle | 15 |
| Mineral matters | 5 |
| ———— | |
| Total | 100 |