Nutritional properties of organic and conventional beef meat at retail

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Consumers perceive that organic meat has superior nutritional properties compared to conventional meat,although the available evidence from commercial samples is very scarce. The present study compared the nutritional composi-tion of organic and conventional beef meat sold at retail, including, for the first time, the bioactive compounds coenzyme Q10,carnosine, anserine, creatine and taurine. Sampling comprised two muscles: longissimus thoracis and supraspinatus.RESULTS: Organic beef had 17% less cholesterol, 32% less fat, 16% less fatty acids, 24% less monounsaturated fatty acids,170% more휶-linolenic acid, 24% more휶-tocopherol, 53% more휷-carotene, 34% more coenzyme Q10and 72% more taurinethan conventional beef. Differences between organic and conventional samples were clearly dependent on the muscle becauselongissimus thoracis and supraspinatus showed different patterns of compound accumulation.CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, a higher amount of bioactive compounds in organic beef meat is reported for the first timein the present study. Retail organic beef had a higher nutritional value than retail conventional beef, which resulted frombetter-balanced lipid and bioactive compound contents.