Buffalo meat

Buffalo meat is the meat of the water buffalo, a large bovid, raised for its milk and meat in many countries including India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Italy, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Egypt.

Buffalo meat is known by various names in different countries. In some places it is known as buffen, or buff in Nepal; in some countries it is known as carabeef, from the Spanish term and breed name carabao. Meat taken from a buffalo younger than 20 months is known as padwa in India and Pakistan or pado in Nepal. Buffalo calves are often referred to as buffalo broilers and brought up exclusively on milk for the purpose of being slaughtered young for meat.

Due to the religious importance of cows in India and Nepal, there is a need to differentiate buffalo meat from beef. In countries like India, for religious and cultural reasons, most of the population does not eat cow meat. In a large number of the Indian states and in Nepal, slaughtering cows is prohibited. Communal violence sometimes happens over cow slaughter or even over suspected beef consumption.

Buffalo are a type of cattle, but their meat is different from beef in many respects. Buffalo meat has a lower fat content, and its fat is milky white, compared to the yellow-white fat of beef. Buffalo meat is darker in color, and buffaloes have harder bones than cows.

Buffalo meat has a lower muscle pH of 5.6±0.4 whereas beef muscle has a pH of 6.4±0.7. It also has a significantly smaller amount of collagen in its muscles, but the species does not differ significantly in the degree of intramuscular collagen cross-linking.

Buffalo have exceptional muscular development and thus they are considerably heavy, with some weighing more than a tonne. The main agricultural use of buffalo is to obtain milk. India has the largest number of buffalo and is the largest producer of its milk, producing nearly 57 million tonnes of it annually. This accounts for 67% of global production. Slaughtering buffalo for meat is a secondary agricultural priority.

Buffalo meat from young buffalo has a much better quality as they have a higher proportion of muscle and a lower proportion of fat as compared to other cattle meat. The highest quality buffalo meat is known as "padwa" in India, taken from a buffalo younger than 24 months.

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