In 'dark-cutting beef', the animal undergoes long-term stress before slaughter.
This stress may be from transportation, rough handling, changing weather conditions such as cold fronts, or anything that causes the animal to draw on its glycogen reserves before slaughter.
At death, there is a limited amount of glycogen available to be converted to lactic acid, the muscle pH will be higher-than-normal (pH of 6.0 or higher), and the colour of meat will be darker than normal.
