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Composition of meat and offal from weaned and fattened rabbits and results of stereospecific analysis of triacylglycerols and phosphatidylcholines
Author(s) -
D'Arco Gilda,
Blasi Francesca,
Cossignani Lina,
Di Giacomo Franco,
Ciavardelli Domenico,
Ventura Francesca,
Scipioni Silvia,
Simonetti Maria Stella,
Damiani Pietro
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of the science of food and agriculture
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1097-0010
pISSN - 0022-5142
DOI - 10.1002/jsfa.4676
Subject(s) - food science , chemistry , polyunsaturated fatty acid , linoleic acid , composition (language) , fatty acid , oleic acid , biochemistry , philosophy , linguistics
BACKGROUND: Rabbit meat has excellent nutritive properties. The purpose of this study was to characterize rabbit meat and offal; in particular, the lipid fraction was studied in order to evaluate total and positional fatty acid (FA) compositions of triacylglycerol (TAG) and phosphatidylcholine (PC) fractions. Eight samples of weaned and eight of fattened rabbits were considered. RESULTS: Fattened rabbit meat contained slightly higher protein percentage content ( P < 0.05) in comparison to weaned (20.1% versus 18.0%). Calcium content was higher in meat than in offal, unlike sodium, iron, zinc, manganese and copper. The cholesterol content in offal was much higher than in meat. FA profiles of total lipid showed a high percentage of unsaturated fatty acids and an n‐6/n‐3 ratio of 10.3 for fattened rabbit meat. Stereospecific analysis of TAG and PC was carried out on an eight‐sample pool of each meat and offal from weaned and fattened rabbits. In all samples the sn ‐2‐position was prevalently esterified with oleic and linoleic acids in TAG, with polyunsaturated fatty acids in PC. CONCLUSION: Lipids from rabbit meat presented higher content of monounsaturated FA and lower n‐6/n‐3 ratio in comparison to offal, which was characterized by higher cholesterol and mineral levels. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry