Differentiating Beef from Buffen/Carabeef/Buffalo meat

Authors:
Dr. Abid Haleem
ahaleem@jmi.ac.in
Mohd. Imran Khan
imrankhan3107@gmail.com
 Buffen /Carabeef/ Buffalo Meat
Buffaloes are raised mainly for milk and meat in
countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Italy,
Russia, Czechoslovakia and Egypt
The biological name of Water Buffaloes is Bubalus
bubalis
Whereas the biological name of Cow is Bos taurus
Thus cow and water buffalo belongs to different
biological species
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 Buffalo meat is called as Buffen
While Cow meat is called as Beef
Many places Buffalo meat is called as Carabeef
and this is quite popular in Philippines, Thailand
and in some South East Asian countries
Sometimes, Buffalo meat is also named by age of
Buffaloes like Padwa as in India / Pakistan
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 Buffalo calves are often called as buffalo broilers and
are bought up exclusively on milk for the purpose of
meat only with standard norms of slaughter weight
against a well-defined age (Ross, 1975; Bhat and
Lakshmanan, 1998)

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 Socio- Political- Religious Importance of Beef

Due to religious and socio-political importance of cow in

India, there is a need to differentiate beef from buffen
Thus in most part of India slaughtering of cow is banned
In countries like India not only religiously but also culturally
most of the population do not eat cow meat (beef)
Sometimes there is communal violence over cow slaughter
or even its suspected consumption, this conflict arises only
due to misconception between terminologies of cow meat
and buffalo meat
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Difference Between Carabeef / Buffen/ Buffalo meat and
Beef
Buffalo being a type of cattle, but its meat is different from cow meat (beef)
in many ways. The major difference between buffen and beef is(C. Valin et
al, 1984):
The fat within buffen is milky white, while the fat within beef is yellowy
white
Buffen has lower fat content than beef
Buffen is darker in color than beef
Bones of beef are softer than buffen
Buffen has a lower muscle pH of 5.60.4 whereas beef muscle has a pH of
6.40.7
Buffen has a significantly smaller amount of collagen in the muscle, but the
species did not differ significantly in the degree of intramuscular collagen
cross linking
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 Buffen/ Carabeef Production
Buffalos have exceptional muscular development and they have heavy
weight even going beyond one tonne
India has the largest number of buffalos and is the largest producer of
buffalo milk. After using them for milk purpose they are used for meat
also
In India, the primary purpose of buffalo is to obtain milk, thus some
special buffalo for milk purpose cost more than 2000 USD
It can be easily said that it is one of the most usable animals. In India
when we see everywhere cattle grazing on road, rarely we find buffalo
among them
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 Buffen from young animal is having much better quality as they have
very high proportion of muscle and low proportion of fat as
compared to other cattle meat
The top quality buffen is padwa, which is buffalo of age less than
20 months
India accounts for about 43% of the world buffen production, with
Uttar Pradesh producing the maximum, then Andhra Pradesh and
then Maharashtra.
Buffen production in India is growing and is 4.1 million tonnes CWE
(Carcass Weight Equivalent) in 2014 to 4.3 million tonnes CWE in
2015.
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 Quality Parameters of Buffen
For centuries buffalos have been used as draught animals as they
have got very good muscular development, thus, buffalos are
generally raised using straw crop residues and they are very cheap
to feed
Buffaloes are generally fed on coarse feeds; they convert them
into protein rich lean meat
Buffaloes can be reared with poor feed resources (Arganosa, 1973)
Buffen is lean and rich in protein and less in fat as compared to
other meat. This has created a good demand of Buffen for health
conscious consumers (Desmond, 1990)
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 Table: Comparing Physical Composition of Buffen and Buffen
Broiler/Padwa
Particulars Buffen (Padwa) Buffen broiler

Water (%) 74-78 76.89

Protein (%) 20.2-24.2 22.46
Fat (%) 0.9-1.8 0.35
Ash (%) 1.0 0.3
Cholestrol (mg %) 61 ---
Energy (Kcal/100g) 131 114

Source: International Journal of livestock Production vol.1 (1), pp.001-005, August, 2009.
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 The protein content in buffen is higher than chicken. Thus with
high protein and low price, buffen is also called as poor peoples
protein
Buffalos have more resistance to diseases than cow. They are
productive up to the age of 18 years. In the initial age they are
used for milk production and when milk production come down
they are slaughtered for meat
Buffalo show a very high growth rate sometimes they add a weight
of 610 g/day (with feed efficiency of 7:1) (Ranjan and Pathak,
1979)
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 Indias Carabeef /Buffen Exports
India is one of the worlds biggest exporter of Buffen
According to US Department of Agriculture India leads over
the next highest exporter Brazil
In 2015, India has exported more than 2.4 million of buffen
and its allied products, with 23.5 % of global buffen exports
However Brazil has exported 2 million tonne and Australia 1.5
million tonne
These three countries constitute 58.7 percent of all Buffen
exports
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 Buffen / Carabeef exports from India have been growing at an
average of approximately 14 % yearly since 2011, and fetched
more than $4.8 billion in 2014
In 2015, first time India has earned more from the export of
buffen than it did from Basmati rice exports
As per CMIE( Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy ) most of
Indias export is to Asian countries, as they are importing
more than 80 %, while African countries imports around 15 %.
Within Asia, while Vietnam imports 45 % of the Carabeef
exported from India
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 Several databases, such as Agricultural Outlook and United Nations
Food show there is increasing trend of meat consumption in India
However, the data also shows that the consumption of buffen has
been falling over the years, It has came down by 44.5 per cent in 2014
from 2000
This fall in consumption has been taking place because of increase in
price of buffen and red meat consciousness among masses
Thus, consumption of chicken went up by 31 per cent in that period.
This shows white meat is taking place of red meat
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 Bibliography & References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_meat
http://www.buffalopedia.cirb.res.in/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef
Ross C (1975). Alternative Livestock: with particular response to the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).In:
Meat. 1st publication pp. 507 524.
Bhat PN, Lakshmanan V (1998). The Buffalo meat Industry in India. An over view. In: Buffalo prod.
health. 1st publication. ICAR pp. 185-214.
Arganosa FC (1973). Evaluation of carabeef as a potential substitute for beef. Philippines Journal of
Nutrition 26(2): 128-143.
Ranjan SK, Pathak NN (1979). Management and Feeding Of Buffaloes. pp 217-227. New Delhi, India:
Vikas Publishing House.
Desmond H (1990). Cattle and Buffalo Meat Production in the Tropics. 1st edition pp. 180-204.
Kondaiah N (2002). Meat and by products. In: Handbook of Animal Husbandry. 3rd revised edition. pp.
950-975. New Delhi, India: DIPA, ICAR.
C. Valin, A. Pinkas, H. Dragnev, S. Boikovski and D. Polikronov (1984), "Comparative study of buffalo
meat and beef", Meat Science, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 69-84,
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-on-top-in-exporting-beef/article7519487.ece
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