Rhomboideus muscle fatty acid profile in advancing age of zebu cattle (Bos indicus)

摘要

The lipid content in muscle tissue confers flavor and other sensory attributes affecting meat tenderness. In this study, we evaluated the changes of fatty acids profile in the Nelore Rhomboideus m. (RB) having Longissimus dorsi (LD) of the same animal for comparison. We used muscle samples in triplicate of three male animals (n=9), aged 18, 24, 36 and 48 months. Whilst for RH, the changes in the lipid content were completely random varying from 3.76% to 50.39% irrespective of animal age, for LD, the lipid amount decreased proportionally with ageing of 3.28<2.83<2.08<1.75, respectively. This result for RH reflects the variability of the muscle in relation to season and management of the animals while in the farm. In relation to n-6/n-3 ratio the RH samples presented values ranging from 7.40 at 18mo of age to 1.52 at 48mo of age while LD samples changed from 1.68 at 24mo of age to 10.74 at 36mo, being the exception of the animals 18mo of age for RB and 36mo for LD, this ratio is lower than 3:1. The MUFA for both RB and LD presented a range of 37 to 50%. The ratio PUFA/SFA, ranged from 0.050 and 0.080 for both muscles irrespective of ageing. We concluded that Rhomboideus m. presented similar fatty acids nutritional quality of Longissimus dorsi m.