Canyon FFA Member Conducts A Study in Meat Tenderness
Friday, August 29, 2025 | Author: Texas FFA News
Kade Lawrence, a Canyon FFA member, has been named the top Food Products and Processing Systems (Category 5) Agriscience Fair Project in the nation at the 97th Annual National FFA Convention and Expo.
The National FFA Agriscience Fair recognizes students who gain real-world, hands-on experiences in agricultural enterprises. Students use scientific principles and emerging technologies to solve complex problems related to agriculture, food and natural resources. The agriscience fair is for middle and high school students. Students compete in one of six categories in the agriscience fair and under one of the six divisions — either individually or in a team.
Lawrence’s project was titled “Exploration of the Relationship Between Cattle Age and Tongue Tenderness, Color Life.” The objective was to begin to understand the relationship between animal age at harvest, assessed by the number of permanent incisors present, and the tenderness and color life of beef tongue.
In the United States beef grading system, maturity of beef cattle is determined using dental evaluation (number of permanent incisors present at harvest) and a combination of skeletal and lean maturity. Age is often used in beef grading systems as an indicator of palatability, particularly tenderness. As animals age, their meat generally becomes tougher, due to increased collagen cross-linkages.
“My findings suggested that determining physiological age via the count of permanent incisors served as a better indicator than USDA’s subjective evaluations of bone ossification and lean maturity,” said Lawrence.
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