Studies on the composition of food

Abstract

1. An attempt has been made to compare the nutritive value of beef from intensively reared animals with that from more extensively reared stock.2. The difficulties of such a comparison are described and the consequent limitations of this experiment specified.3. It was found that samples of longissimus dorsi and superficial digital flexor muscles showed no significant differences between intensively reared and extensively reared animals in their content of moisture, intramuscular fat, protein, non-protein nitrogen, iron, thiamine, riboflavine, or nicotinic acid.4. The longissimus dorsi muscles had more non-protein nitrogen and more nicotinic acid, but less iron and less riboflavine, than the superficial digital flexor muscles.5. There was less vitamin A and less carotene in samples of liver from intensively reared animals than in comparable samples from extensively reared animals.