Antioxidant status, lipid and color stability of aged beef from grazing steers supplemented with corn grain and increasing levels of flaxseed

• Adding low flaxseed levels to pasture diets improves beef antioxidant status.
• Adding high flaxseed levels to pasture diets increases beef oxidation.
• Vacuum aging promoted longissimus thoracis lipid oxidation during aerobic exposure.
• Meat redness decreased as antioxidants declined thru aging and aerobic exposure.

Angus steers were grazed on unsupplemented pasture (CNTRL), pasture supplemented with 0.7% BW cracked corn (FLAX-0), FLAX-0 with 0.125% and 0.250% BW of whole flaxseed (FLAX-1 and FLAX-2). Six steers were grazed per treatment for 70 days, with start and finish weights of 458 and 508 kg. At 24 h post slaughter, longissimus thoracis were harvested, and steaks assigned to treatments of postmortem aging time under vacuum (PM; 3, 14 and 56 days) with or without five days of aerobic exposure (AE). Meat antioxidant status was higher (P < 0.05) when feeding CNTRL and FLAX-1 than FLAX-0 and FLAX-2. Under AE, lipid oxidation was highest for FLAX-2 (P < 0.05), and lowest for FLAX-1. Greatest TBARs and lowest antioxidant capacity and redness values were obtained with AE and the longer PM (P < 0.05). Beef oxidative stability through AE improved by adding a low flaxseed level to supplemented corn grain, but deteriorated by adding a high flaxseed level or by extending PM.