3.2.2. Thawing Loss and Cooking Loss

The flow of exudates from the raw meat of the Australian calves was significantly stronger than the Holstein, as evidenced by the measurement of TL (5.82 ± 2.84% and 3.88 ± 1.05%, respectively; *p* < 0.0001; Table 2). Although the farm effect revealed a difference between the TL scores of the Holstein calves from F1 and F2, it could not obscure

the significant distinction among breeds, highlighting the superiority of this characteristic in the meat of the Holstein calves. The loss of exudates following a thermal treatment is evaluated as the CKL. Here, the loss of exudates from the meat of Australian calves was higher compared to the meat of the Holstein animals, when both breed (*p* = 0.0017) and farm (*p* = 0.007) effects were studied (Table 2). The CKL values detected in Holstein *LL* muscle were in agreement with those reported by others [4,15,53,54]. Taken together, following major processes of thawing and cooking that indicated smaller proportions of exudate loss in Holstein samples, both the TL and the CKL parameters demonstrated advantages, from which the industry of local beef may benefit [56].

#### 3.2.3. Water-Holding Capacity

Water-holding capacity is defined as the ability of fresh meat to retain its own water during cutting, heating, grinding and pressing and during transport, storage and cooking [57]. Poor WHC results in high drip and purge loss, which may represent a significant loss of weight from carcasses and cuts and may affect the yield and quality of processed meat [58,59].

While no differences in WHC were found when the breed effect was studied (Table 2), statistical adjustment to farm revealed higher WHC values in F1 compared to those in F2 and F3 calves (*p* = 0.002; Table 2). It is noteworthy that the WHC values of the Holstein calves were lower than those previously reported for that breed and muscle [4,53,54]. Based on the above, and as changes in WHC levels may be caused by differences in the volume of the myofibrils, resulting from variations in the muscle's inter-filament spacing [60], it is tempting to assume that management conditions on farms, rather than genetic factors, may affect this parameter.

As indicated above, WHC is commonly found in association with pH values, postmortem. Specifically, the power of muscle proteins to bind water becomes weaker when pH declines, due to their 'movement' towards their isoelectric point [61]. On the other hand, at higher pH, WHC increases due to an increase in the overall negative charge of proteins, resulting in repulsion of the filaments and more space for the water molecules [61,62].

The above trend was also exemplified in our study, where the pHu rate was positively associated with WHC in the Holstein animals (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.15; *<sup>p</sup>* ≤ 0.01, data not shown). Within this association, F1 were characterized by higher WHC (45.01 ± 4.65%) compared to F3 calves (43.11 ± 3.40%), which did not differ from the F2 animals (Table 2).
