Marbled meat

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Marbled beef

Marbled meat is meat, especially red meat, which contains various amounts of intramuscular fat, giving it an appearance similar to marble. Meat with a high marbling content tends to be more juicy, tender, and flavorful than meat without. Cuts of meat graded Prime by the USDA have the highest marbling content when compared to other grades making them highly desirable by consumers and can fetch a premium at restaurants and supermarkets. ^[1]

Marbling can be influenced by genetics (British breeds such as Angus, Shorthorns), Wagyu type cattle and dairy breeds (Jersey, Holstein Friesian, Braunvieh--beef type Brown Swiss) have higher marbling scores on average versus most European cattle such as Simmentals, Charolais, Chianina for example. ^{[citation needed]}

Marbling can also be influenced by time on feed and type of feed. The longer that a pen of beef cattle are on feed on the feedlot the higher the chance that they will grade higher on quality scores but have much lower yield grades (percentage of carcass lean to fat ratio) Feeding a high amount of cereal grains such as corn or barley will improve the color of the carcass fat from a brackish yellow to a bright clean white, plus adds more chance of grading in the higher quality grades. ^{[citation needed]}

Veal has little to no marbling since they are extremely young, Cattle will put on subcutaneous (under the skin fat) first, KPH (kidney, pelvic and heart fat) secondly, intermusclar (between the muscle "seam fat") third and then intramuscular fat "marbling" last. Sheep and goats do the same.^{[citation needed]}