Antunes, I.C.Roseiro, L.C.Gonçalves, H.Gonçalves, E.Soares, A.Alegria, C.Alvarenga, N.Reis, J.Oliveira, MargaridaDias, Igor2026-03-262026-03-262026-03-07Antunes, I. C., Roseiro, L. C., Gonçalves, H., Gonçalves, E. M., Soares, A., Alegria, C., Alvarenga, N., Reis, J., Oliveira, M., & Dias, I. (2026). Nutritional composition of commercially sourced meat from two anatomical locations under regenerative and intensive production systems. Foods, 15(5), 940. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods15050940http://hdl.handle.net/10400.15/6040Article 940Regenerative agriculture approaches in livestock production may help produce animal protein that aligns with increasingly demanding sustainability criteria. This study compared commercially sourced beef from regenerative farming systems (RFS; n = 10; Longissimus lumborum, n = 5; Splenius capitis, n = 5) and intensive systems (IS; n = 6; Longissimus lumborum, n = 3; Splenius capitis, n = 3), evaluating the effects of production system (PS), muscle type (MT), and their interaction (MT × PS) on nutritional traits. IS chuck had higher polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and n-6 PUFA family (n-6 PUFA) contents (p < 0.05; 10.24 and 9.15 g fatty acids (FA)/100 g total FA, respectively), driven by C18:2 cis-9, trans-11, C20:4 n-6, and C18:2 n-6 contents. Consequently, IS chuck had a higher polyunsaturated FA and saturated FA ratio (P/S), peroxidability index (PI), n-6 PUFA family and n-3 PUFA family ratio (n-6/n-3), and hypocholesterolemic/hypercholesterolemic ratio (h/H) values (p < 0.05; 0.13, 23.87, 9.33 and 0.32, respectively). By comparison, RFS chuck had the highest n-3 PUFA content (p < 0.05; 1.28 g FA/100 g total FA), primarily due to its higher C18:3 n-3 content, resulting in a lower n-6/n-3 ratio (3.95). RFS meat showed higher vitamin E and α-tocopherol (0.58 and 0.56 mg/100 g of meat, respectively), exceeding the ≥0.30 mg/100 g threshold proposed to limit lipid oxidation, unlike IS meat.engregenerative farming systemsmeat qualitynutritional compositionresearch article10.3390/foods150509402304-8158