To continue my blog series on What’s
in a Food Label? I thought I would talk about ANGUS. Angus is one of the
most popular claims you’ll see on beef, both at the store and at restaurants.
Angus is a breed of cattle. Just like dogs, cats, and horses,
cattle have breeds, and one of the most famous and most popular breeds of beef
cattle is the Angus breed. (Side note: a
cowboy at the NFR right now is sponsored by the Angus breed. That cowboy is
from my hometown!)
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| These are come Angus-cross steers on one of our research projects at the University of Arkansas. |
Angus
cattle originated in the Northeastern region of Scotland. They were black
(although a few red ones pop up every now and then) and polled, meaning that
they naturally do not grow horns. For years, farmers chose the Angus cows and
bulls that produced the best beef, and now the breed is known for its high
quality carcasses. Today, beef from Angus and Angus cross cattle are known for
their high marbling and good eating quality.
Certified Angus Beef.
In the 1970’s the Angus Association took a big leap to market their cattle and
started Certified Angus Beef. Certified Angus Beef is a USDA
Certified Program which means that the company (CAB) sets the requirements
that beef must meet to qualify for their program, but USDA graders certify that
all
the criteria are met and literally
give it a stamp of approval.
For Certified Angus Beef, those criteria include:
·
A minimum marbling score of Modest
or higher (meaning it is at least Average Choice)
·
A ribeye area of 10.0 to 16.0 square inches
·
Less than 1.0 inch of fat thickness
·
A carcass weight of less than 1050 pounds
These are not the only requirements. The cattle must also be
of Angus influence which can be shown through their genotype and traced to
their parents. Or, more commonly, the cattle must be at predominantly (51%)
solid black, and they may not display certain non-Angus characteristics like
dairy-type or Brahman humps.
That means that CAB cattle are not 100% Angus. However,
Angus are the only major beef breed of cattle that were originally black, so if
a calf is 51% black and meets all the other requirements of CAB, chances are,
it has some Angus in its pedigree.
Other Angus. We
see Angus on lots of packages and products that are not Certified Angus Beef.
In fact, there are 109 USDA
Certified Beef Programs and 71 of them use the word ‘Angus’ in their name.
All of them have different criteria for beef quality. Some are high quality
programs like CAB, whereas others are for lower quality beef (Select,
Commercial, and Utility).
Additionally, there are several Angus claims on packages and
menus that are not USDA Certified Programs, but remember that USDA must approve
claims on meat labels, and that includes claims about breed, such as Angus.
On a personal note, we raise a few Angus cattle. One of my
favorite bulls is an Angus named Moses. Several of our Simmental (another beef
breed) cows are black, which means that there is an Angus somewhere in their
pedigree. That is actually the case for lots of cattle. Because of CAB and the
rise in Angus marketing, farmers have selected for cattle with black hides
because they can be sold at a premium. In the past couple of decades the number
of black cattle going to harvest has risen substantially.
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| This is our daughter showing her Red Angus calf, Milly. |
Red Angus. Yes. The Angus cattle carry a recessive gene that causes
some of their calves to be red. A whole new breed of cattle has risen from
those cattle known as Red Angus. We have a few Red Angus cattle, too.